三峡地区古代人类遗骸的分子考古学研究

Significant progresses in anthropology have been made over the last ten years, in particular, DNA technology has become an important tool to study ancient human remains and to solve key mysteries in the history of human evolution. Among the most recent accomplishments research using Mummy from ancient Egyptian Pyramids established their kindred relationship study on the remains of snow man from some 6,000 years ago provided new clues for future direction in anthropology research in Europe; Study on the remains from members of the Russian royal family determined the true identity of individual remain. In addition, the study on DNA samples from the Neanderthals of some 30,000-50,000 years ago found no kindred relationship between the Neanderthals and the modern Europeans an d concluded that the Neanderthals was not the ancestor of the modern Europeans. Result of this study was hailed as one of the ten most significant scientific discoveries of the year. The three-gorge region has long regarded as one of the origins for the main Chinese races. We have inherited rich resources for anthropology study from our ancestors in this region. The hanging coffins and their bury sites unique to this region provided precious resources for anthropology study. According to historical records on the three-gorge region along the Yangtze River, the "Ba people" is the dominant and long lasting human group. It is conceivable that hanging coffin and bury sites were from this group. Data from previous anthropology studies indicated that the Ba people are likely the ancestors for the modern Tujia ethnic group. The authenticity of the records and the reliability of previous investigation, remain to be confirmed by molecular anthropology. Our research utilized molecular biology techniques to analyze skeletal remains from the hanging coffins and bury sites and to compare them with the predominant local ethnic groups, Tujia and others. The results of our study provided scientific evidence to decipher such historical puzzles as "who are the descendent of the "Ba people"? What are the ethnic origins for remains from the hanging coffins as well as the kindred relationship of the skeletal remains? Our results filled the gap in the anthropology study in this field.We studied skeletal remains found from 7 hanging coffins and 5 bury sites (teeth and bones) at the Miaoping, badong, baidicheng. We prepared DNA from these samples using Silicon method. We then cloned and sequenced a 105 bp and a 150 bp fragments in the D-loop region of the mitochondrial genome. We set up multiple control experiments, determined the copy numbers of the ancient DNA template in our amplification system, and confirmed that these DNA fragments were indeed from the ancient skeletal remains. By comparing DNA sequence from samples from different hanging coffins, different bury site, as well as from modern Tujia, Han and other ethnic groups, we noted the frequency of nucleotide distribution were different at four loci, 16,222, 16,301, 16,320, 16,361. . From comparing the nucleotide distribution among our samples we concluded:1.The nucleotide distribution showed high similarity between DNA samples from different hanging coffins, different bury sites as well as that between hanging coffins and bury sites.2.There is no significant difference in nucleotide distribution frequency between the Tujia group and the Han Chinese.3.The Ba people appeared to be closer genetically to the Tujia group comparing to the Han Chinese, the Dahaner people. The Erwenke people, and the Mongolian people.4.In addition, we conducted a study on the polymorphism between the Tujia people and the Han Chinese using two microsatellite markers on the Y chromosome (Dys19, Dys390). We detected no statistical difference in the gene frequency between these two groups.

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