© Yuriy Chernyavskiy
The 7,700-year-old remains of two hunter-gatherer women found in a Russian cave have been genetically analysed, and the
results reveal an unexpected similarity between their genetic make-up, and that of the modern population living in the region today.This suggests that for almost 8,000 years, there's been very little migration in Russia's frozen, eastern corner. Which is surprising, because in most parts of the world the human gene pool diversified significantly across the same time period, thanks to the arrival of agriculture.
But the new genetic results found that the DNA of modern East Asian populations is very closely related to that of two hunter-gatherer women who lived in the region 7,700 years ago - hinting that an unbroken genetic line in the region with very little 'population turnover' since around 5,600 BCE.
"Genetically speaking, the populations across northern East Asia have changed very little for around eight millennia,"
said lead researcher Andrea Manica, from the University of Cambridge in the UK.
The study analysed DNA taking from the teeth and bones of two women found in a cave known as Devil's Gate, located in the
Amur Basin region in far eastern Russia, near the coast where Russia borders North Korea.
The cave was first excavated by
Soviet scientists in 1973, when the team came across hundreds of stones and bone tools, the wood of a former dwelling, woven wild grass, and the remains of five humans.
The site itself dates back to more than 9,000 years ago, but the researchers looked at DNA from the skulls of two females that are estimated to have died around 7,700 years ago. One was in her early 20s, and the other was close to 50 years old.
Analysis of such ancient DNA is incredibly tricky, seeing as genetic information degrades over time. But the team was able to obtain enough
mitochondrial DNA - a type of longer-lasting DNA only passed down between females - from the two women to study.
Comment: See also: Gathering Gondwana: New look at an ancient puzzle