2023-11-15 11:00:00
A lake located in the Indian Himalayas, in Asia, draws the attention of researchers due to the presence of hundreds of bodies scattered around and inside it. Its fame is so great that the place was nicknamed “Skeleton Lake”. Old stories say that a group of people were trapped in the region after a hail storm a long time ago. But an analysis of the bones present in the area brought a surprising revelation.
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Fascinating discoveries
Lake Oopkund is located 5,000 meters above sea level and is taller than any mountain in Western Europe or the United States. It is also only 40 meters in diameter. There, the team of researchers collected DNA samples from 38 skeletons. The findings were published in the journal Nature Communications and indicate that the age of the bodies found varies around a thousand years. Furthermore, the victims had very different origins, being from three different ethnicities. The information is from IFLScience. Bones found in the region (Image: Himadri Sinha Roy/Nature Communications)
Skeletons have different ages and origins
As expected, most of the skeletons were of Indian origin, but DNA from another 14 people reveals eastern Mediterranean heritage, probably from a Greek island. The ancestry of a single individual appears to have been in Southeast Asia.
According to the researchers, instead of a single storm killing them all, radiocarbon dating indicated that the skeletons of Indian origin died more than a thousand years ago, while the others were much more recent, probably from around 1800 AD.
Through the use of biomolecular analyzes such as ancient DNA, stable isotope dietary reconstruction, and radiocarbon dating, we discover that the history of Lake Roopkund is more complex than we ever anticipated and raises the stunning question of how migrants from the eastern Mediterranean, who have an ancestral profile extremely atypical of the region today, died in this place just a few hundred years ago.
David Reich, professor at Harvard Medical School
This was the first case of successful collection and analysis of entire genome ancient DNA from India. Genetic material rarely survives well in hot climates and the high altitude was essential to ensure its preservation.
After the unlikely discovery, researchers further checked and tested the bones’ isotopes, confirming wide variations in their diets and likely places of origin.
They concluded that some of the local stories to be true. Some of the skulls found show damage that could have been caused by large hailstones. However, there is no relationship between them. The authors believe they were pilgrims walking to a nearby temple. The origin of the rest of the skeletons remains a great mystery.
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