title: Analysis of ancient human mitochondrial DNA from the Xiaohe cemetery: insights into prehistoric population movements in the Tarim Basin, China.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Tarim Basin in western China, known for its amazingly well-preserved mummies, has been for thousands of years an important crossroad between the eastern and western parts of Eurasia. Despite its key position in communications and migration, and highly diverse peoples, languages and cultures, its prehistory is poorly understood. To shed light on the origin of the populations of the Tarim Basin, we analysed mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms in human skeletal remains excavated from the Xiaohe cemetery, used by the local community between 4000 and 3500 years before present, and possibly representing some of the earliest settlers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Xiaohe people carried a wide variety of maternal lineages, including West Eurasian lineages H, K, U5, U7, U2e, T, R*, East Eurasian lineages B, C4, C5, D, G2a and Indian lineage M5.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results indicate that the people of the Tarim Basin had a diverse maternal ancestry, with origins in Europe, central/eastern Siberia and southern/western Asia. These findings, together with information on the cultural context of the Xiaohe cemetery, can be used to test contrasting hypotheses of route of settlement into the Tarim Basin.
authors.affiliation: College of Life Science, Jilin University, Changchun, 130023, P. R. China. chunxiangli@jlu.edu.cn.|Ancient DNA Laboratory, Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, P. R. China. chunxiangli@jlu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Chunxiang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: College of Life Science, Jilin University, Changchun, 130023, P. R. China. 775125751@qq.com.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, 0316, Oslo, Norway. erika.hagelberg@ibv.uio.no.
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hagelberg
authors.affiliation: Ancient DNA Laboratory, Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, P. R. China. hongjiehappy619@163.com.
authors.forename: Hongjie
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Life Science College, Jilin Normal University, Siping, 136000, P. R.China. sy_ding@163.com.
authors.forename: Yongbin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Xinjiang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute, Ürümchi, 830000, P. R. China. yingpanli@126.com.
authors.forename: Wenying
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Xinjiang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute, Ürümchi, 830000, P. R. China. yidilisi@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Idelisi
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Abuduresule
authors.affiliation: Ancient DNA Laboratory, Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, P. R. China. zhuhong1951@qq.com.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: College of Life Science, Jilin University, Changchun, 130023, P. R. China. zhouhui@jlu.edu.cn.|Ancient DNA Laboratory, Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, P. R. China. zhouhui@jlu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D005828:Genetics, Population; D005843:Geography; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D058889:Molecular Typing
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial