The Center for Archaeological Science, Sichuan University, in collaboration with multiple institutions, has revealed the history of interaction between ancient populations in Dasong Mountain, Guizhou, and ancient Central Plains populations.

On July 17, 2024, Center for Archaeological Science, Sichuan University, in collaboration with the Guizhou Provincial Institute of Archaeology and several other domestic institutions, published a research paper titled "Ancient genomes provide insights into the genetic history in the historical era of southwest China" in the international archaeological journal archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. This study is the first to report ancient genomic data from ancient populations in Guizhou, southwest China, revealing the significant impact of agricultural populations in the Central Plains on ancient populations in the Guizhou region, represented by the Dasongshan site. It also shows genetic admixture with indigenous populations in southwest China. In contrast, modern ethnic groups living in the Guizhou region carry more genetic components from northern China, indicating that genetic influences from the Central Plains have continued to occur in recent centuries. The presence of a large number of short Runs of Homozygosity (ROH) suggests that the Dasongshan population may have been a small community with exogamous customs. This study is of great significance for understanding the origin of the Dasongshan population, the population migration process in the historical period of Guizhou, and the social organization structure at that time.

Guizhou Province is located in southwestern China and is a historically important passage of the Southern Silk Road, as well as a key intersection connecting inland China with West Asia, South Asia, and Europe for foreign trade, cultural exchange, and population migration. Guizhou is known for its rich ethnic and linguistic diversity, including various ethnic minorities who speak Hmong-Mien, Zhuang-Dong, and Tibeto-Burman languages, reflecting the complex population history of the region.

According to historical records, ancient ethnic groups living in the Guizhou region have interacted with agricultural populations in the Central Plains since the Han Dynasty. During the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty formally established Guizhou Province and migrated a large number of Han people to the region, merging with local ethnic minorities, forming the multi-ethnic coexistence characteristic of modern Guizhou Province. However, due to the humid climate in Guizhou, the preservation of human skeletal remains is poor, and the understanding of the genetic composition and social complexity of prehistoric populations in the region is still insufficient.

In 2022, the Guizhou Provincial Institute of Archaeology led a joint effort with several other institutions to conduct a comprehensive excavation of the Dasongshan Cemetery. This cemetery is the largest excavated and longest-lasting cemetery in Guizhou, with the Ming Dynasty tombs being the most abundant, totaling 1944, providing valuable materials for studying the genetic inheritance of populations in the Guizhou region during this period.

Through principal component analysis, f-tests, and qpAdm model construction, the study found that the Ming Dynasty Dasongshan population had a different genetic structure from other published ancient populations in Southwest China. In addition to exhibiting genetic characteristics of ancient populations in southern China, they also had extensive genetic relationships with millet farming populations in the Yellow River basin of the Central Plains of China. This unique genetic structure may be related to immigrants from the Central Plains, further reflecting the population migration and cultural exchange in the region during the Ming Dynasty. Internal analysis of the population revealed a large number of short ROH sequences in Dasongshan individuals, indicating that it may have been a small group with exogamous customs and no endogamous consanguineous marriage.

The study also analyzed modern populations in southwest China who speak Tibeto-Burman, Zhuang-Dong, and Miao-Yao languages, and found that these modern ethnic groups carry more genetic components related to ancient agricultural populations in the Yellow River basin of China than the Ming Dynasty Dasongshan population, indicating that after the Ming Dynasty, genetic flow from the Central Plains continued to influence Guizhou and southwest China.

The study was jointly completed by Fan Zhang, Bin Bai, Haibing Yuan, Ruojing Zhang from Center for Archaeological Science, Sichuan University; Bisu Zhou, Xinglong Zhang, Changguo Hu from Guizhou Provincial Institute of Archaeology; Chao Ning, Chen Duan from School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University; and Pengcheng Ma from Inner Mongolia University.