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
Histone methylation is a kind of important epigenetic modification which occurs on the lysine residue or arginine residue of histone tails（Zhang and Reinberg,2001）.It takes part in multiple biological processes,including gene expression,genomic stability,stem cell maturity,genetic imprinting,mitosis and development（Fischle et al.,2005）.
In the field of anthropology, the uniparerttally inherited Y chromosome has long been used to trace the paternal lineage of the populations and to understand differences in migration and population genetics between males and females, with additional advantages of small effective population size, suf- ficient markers, and population-specific haplotype distribution （Jobling and Tyler-Smith, 1995; Jin and Su, 2000; Underhill et al., 2000）. Many such population studies have rested on the assumption that all the Y chromosome markers in the non- recombination regions are selectively neutral （Jobling and Tyler-Smith, 2003）.
The paternally inherited Y chromosome has been widely used in forensics for personal identification, in anthropology and population genetics to understand origin and migration of human populations, and also in medical and clinical studies （Wang and Li, 2013; Wang et al., 2014）. There are two kinds of extremely useful markers in Y chromosome, single nucle- otide polymorphism （SNP） and short tandem repeats （STRs）. With a very low mutation rate on the order of 3.0 x 10-8 mutations/nucleotide/generation （Xue et al., 2009）, SNP markers have been used in constructing a robust phylogeny tree linking all the Y chromosome lineages from world pop- ulations （Karafet et al., 2008）. Those lineages determined by the pattern of SNPs are called haplogroups. That is to say, we have to genotype an appropriate number of SNPs in order to assign a given Y chromosome to a haplogroup. Compared with SNPs, the mutation rates of STR markers are about four to five orders of magnitude higher （Gusmgo et al., 2005; Ballantyne et al., 2010）. Typing STR has advantages of saving time and cost compared with typing SNPs in phylogenetic assignment of a Y chromosome （Wang et al., 2010）. A set of STR values for an individual is called a haplotype. Because of the disparity in mutation rates between SNP and STR, one SNP haplogroup could actually comprise many STR haplotypes （Wang et al., 2010）. It is most interesting that STR variability is clustered more by haplogroups than by populations （Bosch et al., 1999; Behar et al., 2004）, which indicates that STR haplotypes could be used to infer the haplogroup information of a given Y chromosome. There has been increasing interest in this cost- effective strategy for predicting the haplogroup from a given STR haplotype when SNP data are unavailable. For instance, Vadim Urasin＇s YPredictor （http：//predictor.ydna.ru/）, Whit Atheys＇ haplogroup predictor （http：//www.hprg.com/hapest5/） （Athey, 2005, 2006）, and haplogroup classifier of Arizona University （Sc
Chuan-Chao WangLing-Xiang WangRukesh ShresthaShaoqing WenManfei ZhangXinzhu TongLi JinHui Li
Dispute between agriculture and initial population expansion in Neolithic Time has been in suspense for a long time.Agriculture first appeared in the Fertile Crescent of West Asia about 11–12 thousand years ago（kya）,with domesticating few wild plant and animal species.There is also evidence of the cultivation of rice and millet in Yangtze and Yellow River Basins of China approximately 9 kya.
Chuan-Chao WangYunzhi HuangXue'er YuChun ChenLi JinHui Li
