Ancient Mitochondrial Genomes Reveal Extensive Genetic Influence of the Steppe Pastoralists in Western Xinjiang

Frontiers in Genetics

卷:12

Yongbin Zhao¹  Chao Ning²  Dong Wei³  Yang Xu⁴  Fan Zhang⁴  Sihao Wu⁴  Yinqiu Cui⁴  Chunxiang Li⁴  Shizhu Gao⁵  Li Jin⁶  Hong-Xiang Zheng⁶  Yong Wu⁷ 

[1] College of Life Science, Jilin Normal University, Siping, China;

[2] Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany;

[3] School of Archaeology, Jilin University, Changchun, China;

[4] School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun, China;

[5] School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun, China;

[6] State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, School of Life Sciences, and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University, Shanghai, China;

[7] Xinjiang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute, Urumchi, China;

关键词: mitochondrial genome;    ancient DNA;    Eurasian Steppe;    Silk Road;    Andronovo;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fgene.2021.740167

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The population prehistory of Xinjiang has been a hot topic among geneticists, linguists, and archaeologists. Current ancient DNA studies in Xinjiang exclusively suggest an admixture model for the populations in Xinjiang since the early Bronze Age. However, almost all of these studies focused on the northern and eastern parts of Xinjiang; the prehistoric demographic processes that occurred in western Xinjiang have been seldomly reported. By analyzing complete mitochondrial sequences from the Xiabandi (XBD) cemetery (3,500–3,300 BP), the up-to-date earliest cemetery excavated in western Xinjiang, we show that all the XBD mitochondrial sequences fall within two different West Eurasian mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) pools, indicating that the migrants into western Xinjiang from west Eurasians were a consequence of the early expansion of the middle and late Bronze Age steppe pastoralists (Steppe_MLBA), admixed with the indigenous populations from Central Asia. Our study provides genetic links for an early existence of the Indo-Iranian language in southwestern Xinjiang and suggests that the existence of Andronovo culture in western Xinjiang involved not only the dispersal of ideas but also population movement.

【 授权许可】

Unknown