喜马拉雅骷髅湖之谜

High in the Himalayas of India, amid the snow-capped peaks, nestles a mystery.

印度区域的喜马拉雅山高地，白雪覆盖的山巅之中，栖息着一个谜。

Roopkund Lake is a shallow body of water filled with human bones - the skeletons of hundreds of individuals.

路普康湖水体很浅，充满了人类的骨骼--数百个人的骷髅。

It's these that give the lake its other name, Skeleton Lake, and no one knows how the remains came to be there.

因此这个湖有了另一个名字，骷髅湖。没人知道这些遗骸是如何到达这里的。

One hypothesis is that some catastrophe, a single event such as a powerful storm, had befallen a large group of people. But DNA analysis of 38 of the skeletons has turned that idea on its head.

一种假设是，某个灾难，一个单一的事件，比如一场强大的风暴，降临到一大群人身上。但是对38具骷髅的DNA分析完全改变了这个说法的思路。

The remains appear to come from distinct groups of people from as far as the Mediterranean, and they arrived at the lake several times over a 1,000-year span.

这些遗骸似乎来自不同的人群，最远的来自地中海。他们在1000年的时间里分几次到达了这个湖。

"Through the use of biomolecular analyses, such as ancient DNA, stable isotope dietary reconstruction, and radiocarbon dating, we discovered that the history of Roopkund Lake is more complex than we ever anticipated," said geneticist David Reich of Harvard Medical School.

“通过使用生物分子分析，比如远古DNA、稳定同位素膳食重建以及放射性碳定年法，我们发现路普康湖的历史比我们预料的更为复杂。“哈佛医学院的基因学家大卫·赖希说道。

The story began to unfold a decade ago. Geneticist Kumarasamy Thangaraj of India's CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 72 of the skeletons.

十年前，这个故事开始展开。印度科学与工业研究委员会细胞与分子生物中心的基因学家Kumarasamy Thangaraj，对72具骨骼的线粒体dna进行了测序。

As Thangaraj and his late colleague Lalji Singh had expected, some of the skeletons had DNA consistent with a local Indian origin.

正如Thangaraj和他已故的同事Lalji Singh预料的那样，有些骷髅的DNA与当地印度裔一致。

But some did not. Several skeletons appeared to have originated around West Eurasia.

但有些不是。有几具骷髅似乎是来源于西欧亚大陆。

This analysis revealed three distinct groups. The largest consisted of 23 individuals with DNA similar to that of people from present-day India. Apart from this, they seemed genetically unrelated.

这项分析揭露了三个不同的群。最大的一组由23个人组成，他们的DNA与当今印度的人相似。除此之外，他们在基因上似乎毫无联系。

The second-largest group, comprising 14 individuals, was a huge surprise. Their DNA was most similar to people in present-day Crete and Greece.

第二大群体有14人，很令人惊讶。他们的DNA与现今克里特和希腊的人最为相似。

Finally, the one remaining individual had DNA suggesting a Southeast Asian origin.

最后，剩下的一个人的DNA表明他有东南亚血统。

Even more surprising was the staggered arrival times of the groups. Radiocarbon dating placed the Indian-related bones between the 7th and 10th centuries CE.

更令人惊讶的是，这群人的到达时间错开了。放射性碳年代测定法将这些与印度有关的骨头置于公元7世纪至10世纪之间。

It's possible they were divided into different groups at different times within this timespan.

有可能他们在这个时间期限内，被划分为不同时间的不同群组。

But the other two groups, from the Mediterranean and from Southeast Asia, were dated to between the 17th and 20th centuries CE.

但是另外两个群组，来自地中海和东南亚，可以追溯到公元17世纪到20世纪之间。

That's just a few hundred years ago. And it's possible that the remains that haven't been tested could include other groups, from other times and other regions.

那只是几百年前的事。还有一种可能是，没有经过测试的遗骸，可能包括来自其他时代和其他地区的其他族群。