Xinjiang,the most northwest provincial administrative area of China,was the area where the oriental people met the occidental.The populations in Xinjiang exhibit very high genetic diversity.Previous study revealed that the eastern Xinjiang populations of the Bronze Age were mixed by the Eastern and the Western Eurasians.However,few studies have been performed to reveal when the population admixture started and how far to the west it reached.In this paper,we studied 148 craniofacial traits of 18 skulls from the Bronze Age Liushui graveyard in Khotan(Keriya County) in the southwest of Xinjiang.Seventeen craniometrical parameters of the Khotan samples were then compared with those of other ancient samples from around Xinjiang using dendrogram cluster analysis,principal components analysis,and multidimensional scaling.The results indicated that population sample of Liushui graveyard was mixed by the Western and Eastern Eurasians with about 79% contribution from the east.Therefore,we demonstrated that population admixture between east and west Eurasia can be traced back to as early as 1000 BC in southwest Xinjiang.
TAN JingZeLI LiMingZHANG JianBoFU WenQing, GUAN HaiJuan2, AO Xue2,WANG LingE1, WU XinHua3, HAN KangXin3, JIN Li1'2 & LI Hui1'2.FU WenQingGUAN HaiJuanAO XueWANG LingEWU XinHuaHAN KangXinJIN Li
Teeth are one of the most important materials for anthropological studies because they are likely to be preserved in ancient remains.While the frequencies of dental characteristics can provide clues to the phylogeny of populations,genetic studies at the individual level can further reveal the biological mechanisms and evolutionary context of dental characteristics.In this study,by analyzing 38 dental characteristics of 242 Xinjiang Uyghur individuals,we found that(i)the dental characteristics of the Uyghurs showed evidence of admixture between European and East Asian populations.The admixture proportions were in line with those previously reported in population genetic studies;(ii)the Xinjiang Uyghur dental characteristics formed three clusters in pairwise correlation analysis.One of the main clusters consisted of characteristics including incisor shoveling,double shoveling and mesial ridge;and(iii)all the characteristics in this cluster were significantly correlated with the genetic variant EDARV370A.The extracted composite phenotypic factor was also significantly associated with EDARV370A,which explained 18%of the total phenotypic variance.This indicated a pleiotropic effect,i.e.,the same genetic factor affects a number of dental characteristics at the same time.Our results confirmed that EDARV370A,a genetic variant that first originated in East Asia about 30000 years ago,played an important role in incisor shoveling in East Asia.This finding suggested that incisor shoveling in modern humans in East Asia is likely to have appeared after the late Pleistocene.
TAN JingZePENG QianQianLI JinXiGUAN YaQunZHANG LiPingJIAO YiYANG YaJunWANG SiJiaJIN Li
