© Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and ArchaeologyThe burial of Xingyi_EN, a woman who died in the Early Neolithic period in Yunnan Province, China.
Researchers made the discovery while studying ancient skeletons that could help them map the diverse genetics of central China. The DNA of this ghost lineage individual, an Early Neolithic woman who was buried at the Xingyi archaeological site in southwestern China's Yunnan province, also holds clues to the origins of Tibetan people.
"There likely were more of her kind, but they just haven't been sampled yet," study co-author Qiaomei Fu, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, told Live Science in an email.
Fu and colleagues detailed their analysis of 127 human genomes from southwestern China in a study published May 29 in the journal Science. Most of the skeletons that they sampled were dated between 1,400 and 7,150 years ago and came from Yunnan province, which today has the highest ethnic and linguistic diversity in all of China.
"Ancient humans that lived in this region may be key to addressing several remaining questions on the prehistoric populations of East and Southeast Asia," the researchers wrote in the study. Those unanswered questions include the origins of people who live on the Tibetan Plateau, as previous studies have shown that Tibetans have northern East Asian ancestry along with a unique ghost ancestry that has mystified researchers.
The oldest person the researchers tested was found to be the missing link between Tibetans and the ghost' lineage.
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