Dna Study Of Ancient Populations In Northwest China

With the help of molecular biology, ancient DNA has been on the way of scientific development since it was born during 1980s'. Combined with molecular anthropology, physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistics and ethnology, ancient DNA has provided epochmaking information for many scientific questions, such as phylogenetic status of extinct species, relationship of early Homo sapiens ( Homo neanderthalensis) and late Homo sapiens, and domestication.China is provided with plenty of archaeological site, where remains of ancient inhabitants have given invaluable opportunity, not only to anthropology, but also to ancient DNA. Therefore, using modern molecular biological technology, it is possible for ancient DNA to offer important clues for the knowledge of ancient inhabitants about their origins, genetic structures and relationships with contemporary Chinese.According to acknowledged authority of ancient DNA study, we achieved ancient DNA data from two different site - the graveyard of mausoleum -building workers for the First Emperor in Xi'an of Shaanxi Province and the graveyard of Gavaerk in Qiemo (Ch(a|¨)rch(a|¨)n) of Xinjiang Province, dating about 2200 and 2100 years before present respectively. The former results showed that the origin of mausoleum-building workers was diverse including Han and minorities, moreover, it was not limited in northern China; The later ones suggested that in Xinjiang, the genetic admixture of east and west Eurasian populations occurred 2,500 years ago, and moreover, the west Eurasian populations might be from Siberia rather than Central Asia.In addition, we studied the technique of ancient DNA extraction and found that out of our expectation, extraction negative controls could not detect trace of contaminants. Afterwards, we proposed improvement of ancient DNA extraction, which advanced the authority of ancient DNA study.