Chinese gene unchanged for 3,000 years in cradle of civilisation: study
Examination of genomic sequences in the Central Plain region of China finds ‘no major shift’ since the Stone Age, despite upheavals
Their findings show that one of China’s most central regions has not been influenced by nomadic populations or even internal migration from the south, despite numerous regime changes and warfare.
In the corrected proof of their paper, published in peer-reviewed journal Science Bulletin, Wang Chuanchao and his team at Xiamen University, along with researchers at Zhengzhou University, said there has been “no major genetic shift since the Late Neolithic in [the] Central Plain of China”.
The Central Plain of China – known as Zhongyuan in Chinese – surrounds the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River and was one of the world’s earliest independent Neolithic agricultural revolution centres, archaeological records show.
Despite being home to the capital cities of 20 dynasties, the region has been understudied because of a lack of ancient genomes, especially due to the turbulence it experienced over the past few millennia, according to the journal’s publisher.
The Chinese archaeologists and geneticists sequenced and examined high-quality genomes of 30 individuals from Henan province – centre of the Central Plain region – from the Western Zhou (1046-771BC) through to the Qing dynasty (1644 to 1911).
