Molecular Genetic Research Of Ancient Xianbei

As a population who had influences on history far and wide, Xianbeicontributed to the establishment and development of Chinese greatly.Evidences of History and Anthropology have showed the existence ofgenetic mixture among Xianbei and several ancient and modernpopulations. Some populations in north China still hold certain culturetraditions of Xianbei. To make clear those relations, we need proofs ofmany aspects. Methods of molecular biology have been proved to beeffective on such subject. Therefore we collected several bone samplesfrom two Xianbei tombs in inner Mongolia and analyzed geneticrelationship among Xianbei and compared populations.The mtDNA hypervariable segment I sequences were sequenced in 23individuals and 19 haplotypes was defined. Among 19 polymorphicsites, 16129,16223,16256,16260,16298,16319,16327,16362are the hottest ones. Analysis on haplogroup shows that these samplesbelonged to normal Asian haplogroups, and Blast from GENBANKproved this point. Sequences of sample1,2,5,7,10,12 could be foundin GENBANK and those sequences distributed mainly in northern andeastern Asia.Xiongnu lived at the same time with Xianbei, and was supposed tohave had great influences on Xianbei. This study also found threemutual hot sites in two populations which shows some geneintercourse. However, further phylogenetic analysis did not supportclose relationship between these two populations. Also, contributionsto the modern gene pool were not the same way between the twowhich shows more differences. Furthermore, in the multidimensionalanalysis based on ancient populations, we noticed another populationwhich existed in Helingeer during Warring States Period. And thispopulation seems to have more effects on Xianbei than Xiongnu has.The time of Khitan was little later than Xianbei and many historiansbelieved that Khitan was the offspring of a branch of Xianbei.According to this study, Xianbei is the closest population to Khitan ingenetic diversity analysis. And in phylogenetic tree of these twopopulation and other related ones, Xianbei presents the shortest geneticdistance to Khitan. Moreover, in multidimensional analysis eitherbased one modern populations or ancient populations, Xianbei andKhitan occupy a unique area which is separated from other populations.These suggest close relationship between the two in maternal lineageand that Xianbei was a potential ancestor of Khitan.Study on polymorphic sites and haplogroup shows that Xianbei hasclose relationship with modern populations in northern and easternAsia and maybe has made great contribution to the gene pool of theseareas. Furthermore, phylogenetic analysis was done among Xianbeiand Han populations from northern China, and the result suggestsbasically equal influence on this wide area. And on this basis,relationship between Xianbei and Han in Gansu and Qinghai is a littlemore close. This shows that Xianbei might have broad influence onnorthern China and areas around.