'100-Year Mystery' Revealed: Identity of the Tarim Basin Mummy Group Uncovered

Seoul National University Research Team Reveals Genetic Origins in International Collaborative Study
Confirmed as Ancient Northern Eurasian Residents, Not Russian Lineage Migrants

Tarim Basin Mummy. Naturally mummified woman excavated from Tomb M11 at the Xiaohe Cemetery (Source: Wenying Li, Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology). Provided by Seoul National University.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] Domestic researchers have uncovered the identity of the mummies from the Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang-Uyghur region of China, which had remained a mystery for over 100 years. Contrary to the existing theory that they were nomads of Russian descent who migrated there, genetic analysis revealed that they were originally ancient North Eurasians who inhabited the area.

Seoul National University announced on the 8th that a research team led by Professor Chungwon Jeong from the Department of Biological Sciences, in collaboration with researchers from Jilin University in China, the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and Harvard University in the United States, identified the genetic origins of the first inhabitants of the Tarim Basin who lived 4,000 years ago. The research findings were published online on the 28th of last month in the international academic journal Nature.

In the Tarim Basin, people who lived approximately 4,000 to 2,000 years ago have been naturally mummified due to the dry environment. These mummies were first discovered in the early 20th century. Since the 1990s, early archaeological sites in the Tarim Basin have been excavated extensively, revealing boat-shaped coffins covered with cowhide, bow-shaped grave decorations, wool felt clothing, and naturally dried preserved dairy products, attracting significant academic interest. Based on these pastoral group artifacts and the appearance of the mummies, the prevailing hypothesis was that they were descendants of pastoral groups who migrated from the Russian steppes about 5,000 years ago.

The research team analyzed the genomes of 13 individuals from the oldest archaeological sites of the Tarim Basin mummy group, including Xiaohe, Gumugou, and Beifang, as well as the genomes of five individuals from the earliest pastoral groups who lived about 5,000 years ago in the neighboring Junggar Basin. The results confirmed that the inhabitants of the two regions had genetically contrasting origins. The people of the Junggar Basin were culturally and genetically close to the pastoral groups who migrated from the Russian steppes. However, the Tarim Basin mummy group showed no genetic relationship with the previously proposed origin groups such as the Russian steppe pastoralists or Central Asian oasis farming groups. Instead, they descended from hunter-gatherer groups who lived across a wide area from southern Siberia to the Tarim Basin.

The research team explained, "They belong to the lineage known as 'ancient North Eurasians,' which was widespread in southern Siberia during the late Pleistocene, and we confirmed that they were indigenous inhabitants of a vast inland Eurasian region extending to the Tarim Basin."

The researchers also analyzed high-protein residues extracted from dental calculus of the Tarim Basin mummy group, confirming that they were pastoralists who consumed milk from cattle, sheep, and goats. Therefore, despite genetic isolation, they actively adopted cultural elements such as livestock and crops from neighboring groups and developed a new lifestyle.

The research team stated, "We have revealed the origins of the Tarim Basin mummy group, which had long remained a challenging issue in academia, and presented a representative case of the discrepancy between population movement and material culture change."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.