Roopkund Lake in the Indian Himalayas has several hundred bodies scattered around and within it , take in the soubriquet “ Skeleton Lake ” . Local taradiddle have-to doe with to an ancient party take in in a mountain hailstorm . However , an analysis of the age and genome of the bone reveals something much stranger and harder to excuse : the victims were split by 1,000 years and had very different origins .
locate 5,000 meters ( 16,400 feet ) above ocean level , Roopkund is high than any pot in Western Europe or the contiguous US , so getting there is far from easy . It ’s also just 40 measure ( 130 fundament ) across . However , something must have made it deserving the effort because when a team from many universities sampled thegenome - wideDNA from 38 of Roopkund ’s skeletons , they found three very distinguishable ethnicity .
As await , the majority were Indian , but the DNA of 14 others reveals eastern Mediterranean , most likely Grecian island , heritage . A single individual ’s ancestry appears to have been in Southeast Asia , almost as aloof in the opposite management .
Map showing location of Roopkund Lake in the Himalayas, with the inset showing the route of the Nanda Devi Raj Jat pilgrimage.Image credit: Harney et al., Nature Communications 2019
Moreover , rather of a individual tempest killing them all , carbon 14 geological dating indicated the locals died more than 1,000 years ago , while the visitor were much more recent , probably around 1800 CE . More strangely still , the older grouping appear to have issue forth from many parts of India , with at least two one C between the oldest and youngest of that population .
“ Through the use of biomolecular psychoanalysis , such as ancient DNA , stable isotope dietetical reconstruction , and carbon 14 dating , we discovered that the history of Roopkund Lake is more complex than we ever foreknow , and bring up the prominent question of how migrant from the easterly Mediterranean , who have an line visibility that is extremely untypical of the region today , died in this place only a few hundred years ago , ” Professor David Reich of Harvard Medical School said in a 2019statement .
The findings , published in the journalNature Communicationsin 2019 , check the first reputation of the successful accumulation and analysis of whole genome ancient DNA from India . DNA rarely survives well in hot mood and the mellow - elevation lake is one of the few places on the subcontinent cold enough to uphold it .
The finding were so unbelievable that Reich and atomic number 27 - authors chequer them by test the bones ' isotopes , confirming great variations in their diets and likely places of descent .
One part of the local story does appear to be true : Some of the skull found at the site show damage consistent with being dispatch by expectant hailstones , and almost one-half were char . Yet none of those sampled were touch on to each other . The writer call up they were Pilgrim Father walking to a nearby synagogue , but ca n’t explain the more late population .
An early version of this story wasoriginally publishedin August 2019 .
