DNA Study of China’s First Farmers Reveals Population Movements

BEIJING, CHINA—According to a statement released by Peking University, researchers led by Huang Yani and Pang Yuhong of Peking University analyzed the complete genomes of 58 individuals whose remains were recovered from central China's Baligang site. This Neolithic site is situated between the Yellow River basin to the north, where early farmers grew millet, and the Yangtze River basin to the south, where people planted rice. The DNA study suggests that in the early Neolithic period, the Baligang population comprised a mix of northern and southern East Asian ancestry. Then, some 4,200 years ago, there was an increase in people bearing southern ancestry living in the Baligang region. The researchers think that rice farmers from the Yangtze River basin may have migrated northward in response to a known global climate event. Not all changes in genetic makeup coincided with changing pottery styles or methods of farming, however, indicating that cultural innovations sometimes spread without major changes in the population. Additionally, the scientists mapped the genomes of 75 of the 90 individuals whose remains were discovered in a mass grave in the Baligang region. All of the men in the group shared the same Y-chromosome lineage, while the women were found to have come from diverse maternal lineages. This suggests that women traveled to join other groups, and men remained in their places of birth. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature Communications. For more on Neolithic China, go to "Neolithic City of Shimao," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of the Decade.