Neolithic ancestors of Han Chinese and Tibetans lived by Yellow River: study

The main genetic components of the Han and Tibetan ethnic groups came from people living in the middle reaches of the Yellow River about 7,000 years ago, according to a study carried out by Chinese archaeologists.

The study involved several institutions, including the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology (HICHA) and Xiamen University. Its results were released in the latest edition of Science Bulletin, a multidisciplinary academic journal supervised by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and co-sponsored by the CAS and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Using ancient-DNA capture techniques, researchers obtained eight unrelated genomes for use in population genetic analysis for the first time. They found that 57 to 92 percent of the Han Chinese ethnic group's genetic components came from the Neolithic people living in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, particularly people from the Yangshao culture.

The DNA research also supported the theory that people living around the Yellow River thousands of years ago contributed to the genetic formation of those living on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and in southwest China today, with 70 to 80 percent of the genetic components of the Tibetans and a large proportion of those from ethnic groups such as Miao and Zhuang coming from the Neolithic people living in the middle reaches of the Yellow River.

In 1921, the first excavation of the Yangshao Village site in Mianchi County, Henan Province, marked the birth of modern Chinese archaeology.

Originating around the middle reaches of the Yellow River and dating back 5,000 to 7,000 years, the Yangshao culture is considered to have been an important contributor to the Chinese civilization.

Wei Xingtao, deputy chief of HICHA, said that the latest study has filled a void in paleo-genomic data on the Neolithic people living along the middle reaches of the Yellow River and that it is important to the understanding of the history of those Neolithic people, and of the origin and spread of the Chinese civilization.