Ancient DNA sheds light on Tibetan ancestry

Chinese paleoanthropologists have discovered that people living on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for the past 5,000 years share a single origin derived from a northeast Asian group that mixed with a separate, unknown group.

The history of permanent settlement on the plateau, with its cold, and arid environment, and the origins of the many genetic adaptations found in modern Tibetans at high altitudes are of interest to researchers.

Despite extensive archaeological evidence, DNA samples from ancient humans were previously limited to those taken from a thin slice of the southwestern Himalayan highlands.