Lake Full of Skeletons Mystery Deepens

[Eldorado]

"Roopkund, a remote lake high in the Indian Himalaya, is home to one of archaeology’s spookiest mysteries: the skeletons of as many as 800 people. Now, a study published today in Nature Communications attempts to unravel what happened at “Skeleton Lake”—but the results raise more questions than answers.

"In the early 2000s, preliminary DNA studies had suggested that the people who died at Roopkund were of South Asian ancestry, and radiocarbon dates from around the site cluster at 800 A.D., a sign that they all died in a single event.

"Now, full genomic analyses from 38 sets of skeletal remains upend that story."

Full monty at Nat Geo: https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/dna-study-deepens-mystery-of-lake-full-of-skeletons.aspx

And at Science Alert: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-mystery-of-skeleton-lake-in-the-himalayas-has-just-deepened

Paper at Nature dot com: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11357-9

Edited August 21, 2019 by Eldorado
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[Unusual Tournament]

I read about tis today on my news feed. What the bloody hell were Greeks doing in the Himalaya's 800AD? 

[Eldorado]

1 hour ago, Captain Risky said:

I read about tis today on my news feed. What the bloody hell were Greeks doing in the Himalaya's 800AD? 

Indo-Greek Kingdom

"Some Greek nuclei may have continued to survive until the 2nd century AD"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Greek_Kingdom

"Malana: A Himalayan village shrouded in myth"

BBC Travel: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180821-malana-a-himalayan-village-shrouded-in-myth

Edited August 21, 2019 by Eldorado

[MissJatti]

How far is the silk route from Roopkund

[Jon the frog]

A soup of bones frozen and unfrozen for centuries... carbon dating are good in these condition ? 

Still it's a wonderful spot to drop corpses, one more or one less... who will see the difference.

[Piney]

On 8/21/2019 at 6:54 AM, Captain Risky said:

I read about tis today on my news feed. What the bloody hell were Greeks doing in the Himalaya's 800AD? 

It was the Greco-Sogdians who brought Buddhism to China. 

[Unusual Tournament]

1 hour ago, Piney said:

It was the Greco-Sogdians who brought Buddhism to China. 

Thanks Piney. Alexander the Great is a subject I love and am aware of the huge influences they have had on the east and Far East. I think there was an excellent thread not that long ago about Greek artistic influence on the Terracotta Army that was good reading too. 

I think by 800AD any racial purity in the Greek settlers would have diluted enough for the scientific tests to prove inconclusive. This was not the case though.

Back to the Greek DNA. In the course of testing the bones they found not only the Greek DNA but dietary indicators pointing to food stuffs native to the Aegean and not Northern India/ Nepal. So either they were slaves, traders or even religious converts on a pilgrimage. That’s the mystery for me. 

Edited August 23, 2019 by Captain Risky

[Piney]

5 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:

Thanks Piney. Alexander the Great is a subject I love and am aware of the huge influences they have had on the east and Far East. I think there was an excellent thread not that long ago about Great artistic influence on the Terracotta Army that was good reading too. 

The founder of the Shaolin Monastery and inventor of Kungfu was probably a Greco-Sogdian. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhidharma

[kobolds]

 

On 8/21/2019 at 9:20 PM, MissJatti said:

How far is the silk route from Roopkund

since majority are india ,we can exclude silk route theory