DNA reveals unexpected origins of enigmatic mummies buried in a Chinese desert

CNN)Since their discovery, the ancestry of hundreds of mummified bodies buried in boats in an inhospitable desert region of northwest China has puzzled and divided archaeologists.


Found in the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang mostly in the 1990s, the mummies' bodies and clothes are strikingly intact despite being up to 4,000 years old. Naturally preserved by the dry desert air, their facial features and hair color can clearly be seen.


Their Western looks; felted and woven wool clothing; and the cheese, wheat and millet found in their unusual graves suggested they were long-distance herders from the West Asia steppe or migrating farmers from the mountains and desert oases of Central Asia.


However, a new study by Chinese, European and American researchers that analyzed the DNA of these 13 mummies, sequencing their genomes for the first time, has painted a different picture. Their analysis suggested that the remains did not belong to newcomers but a local group descended from an ancient Ice Age Asian population.

MORE The origins of the Tarim Basin mummies has long puzzled scientists. Now, they have a new theory - CNN