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The slaves of the First Emperor of China

PLoS One has an interesting new paper on the intersection of archeology, history and genetics, Mitochondrial DNA Evidence for a Diversified Origin of Workers Building Mausoleum for First Emperor of China:

In conclusion, we showed that MBWs was an admixture and bore genetic continuity with contemporary Chinese populations. Its origin was much diversified, which seems to be compatible with historical accounts that the sources of slaved workers at Qin. Dynasty tend to be extremely diverse. Furthermore, we showed that a strong presence of the workers of southern origins although the results of analysis should be taken with caution in the context of more recent migrations after Qin Dynasty. Further studies are important to provide a more definitive understanding on the origin of these samples using the whole genome of mtDNA and Y chromosomal variations.

The caveats are many. N = 19. Ancient DNA extract is of course subject to contamination. This is only mitochondrial DNA inherited through the maternal line, so it might give us a distorted perception of genetic variation and relation. But, this is very interesting because it gives us concrete anchors and scaffolds what we already know from textual sources. In fact, the authors point out that one of the individuals seems likely to have a genetic affinity with the ancestral populations of the modern Japanese, as opposed to the disparate groups of the Chinese mainland.
A PC chart showing the relationships of the samples. MBW = mausoleum-building workers:


journal.pone.0003275.g002.jpg
The PC’s measure the independent components of genetic variation between these populations (individuals pooled together). This is a plot of the two largest components of variation (values denoted on the figure). The authors emphasize that the 19 individuals in the MBW sample were very diverse, which explains their distinction from various other ethnic groups. The Han Chinese samples are drawn from all across China and clustered by locality. Note that during this period China south of the Yangtze was predominantly populated by non-Han peoples, and there is a lot of genetic and non-genetic evidence that southern Han populations are a cultural and biological amalgamations of autochthons and immigrants from the north.
Update: Also, at Anthropology.net.

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