A bone sample found at Roopkund

HYDERABAD: A team of international scientists on Tuesday claimed to have solved the mystery behind skeletal remains of humans found at Roopkund Lake, infamously called the Skeleton Lake , in the Himalayas . They were able to establish, through DNA analysis and other biomolecular tools, that the human remains belong to three distinct genetic groups — Indian , Mediterranean and Southeast Asian populations, who may have perished in different episodes — on the shores of the lake, located in the present-day Uttarakhand.

Researchers, including scientists from city-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), extracted DNA from the skeletons found on the shores of Roopkund Lake, dubbed Mystery Lake’ located at over 5,000 metres above sea-level, and analysed it. They discovered that the three genetically-distinct groups had perished in at least two different episodes, separated by a thousand years. Their study was published online on Tuesday (August 20) in the journal ‘Nature Communications’.

The identity of these skeletons has long been a subject of speculation. Local folklore describes a pilgrimage to the nearby shrine of the mountain goddess, Nanda Devi, undertaken by a king, his queen and their many attendants, was struck down by the wrath of the goddess due to their inappropriate and celebratory behaviour. It has also been suggested that the human remains were of an army or group of merchants caught in a storm. Another view was that they were the victims of an epidemic!

The CCMB study now found that the individuals with Indian-ancestry origin had died at Roopkund during 7-10th century CE (common era) possibly during several distinct events. The other two groups, likely composed of travellers from the eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia, arrived at Roopkund Lake during the 17-20th centuries.

CCMB chief scientist and co-author of the study Kumarasamy Thangaraj said: “We first became aware of the presence of multiple distinct groups at Roopkund after sequencing the mitochondrial DNA of 72 skeletons. While many of the individuals possessed genetic information typical of present-day Indian populations, we also identified a large number of individuals with a genetic makeup that would be more typical of populations from west Eurasia”

The work was initiated a decade ago in an Ancient DNA Clean Lab at CCMB along with Dr.Lalji Singh.

Co-author Niraj Rai, who was pursuing PhD at CCMB then , said, “The first group composed of 23 individuals with ancestries related to people from present-day India. Surprisingly, the second group was made up of 14 individuals with ancestry, most related to people who live in present-day Crete and Greece. A third group has ancestry found in Southeast Asia.”

Prof. David Reich of Harvard Medical School, USA, also a co-author, said: “We discovered that the history of Roopkund Lake is more complex than we ever anticipated, and raises the striking question of how migrants from the eastern Mediterranean died in this place a few hundred years ago.” CSIR-CCMB director Rakesh Mishra said, “This study highlights the power of genomics. It helps in understanding our past. And, pave way for analysing skeletal remains obtained from across the country.”

