We are indigenous!

The Ulchi turned out to be an indigenous people with an experience of 8000 years

Ekaterina Rusakova, N+1

Devil's Gate Cave in Primorsky Krai. Human remains were found here
the Neolithic era, which turned out to be close relatives of modern Ulchi.

An international group of scientists has received the first genetic proof that some Far Eastern peoples, in particular, representatives of the Ulchi people from the Amur region, have been living in one place for almost eight thousand years. The study is published in Science Advances (Siska et al., Genome-wide data from two early Neolithic East Asian individuals dating to 7700 years ago).

Genetic studies have shown that large-scale migrations have taken place in western Eurasia since the Neolithic era. Approximately 8.5-7 thousand years ago, farmers from the Middle East migrated to Europe, gradually displacing indigenous hunter-gatherers. The ancient inhabitants of Iran migrated to the north, to the Eurasian steppe. Later, about 5.5 thousand years ago, steppe dwellers migrated to Eastern and Central Europe. What was happening at that time in the Far East was still not very clear, since genetic studies of the inhabitants of this region were practically not carried out. The authors of the new study were able to find out.

In 1973, the Devil's Gate Cave was found in Primorsky Krai, in which a Neolithic site was discovered. In addition to animal bones and artifacts, archaeologists have found burials here with the remains of seven people, whose age was approximately 7700 years. Recently, geneticists have managed to obtain DNA samples of Neolithic people. Scientists have identified a partial genome sequence in two ancient women and described one of them whose DNA has been preserved better.

Judging by the genetic data, a Neolithic resident of Primorye had brown eyes and straight thick hair. It is very likely that she, unlike modern Europeans, suffered from lactose intolerance. On the other hand, unlike other Far Eastern peoples (Japanese, Koreans or Chinese), she apparently did not have an innate intolerance to alcohol.

In addition, it turned out that ancient people and representatives of the modern Ulchi people living in the Khabarovsk Territory belong to the same haplogroup. That is, judging by the genetic data, the Ulchi have been living in the Far East for at least about eight millennia. Similar genotypes were found in the neighboring Orochi and Hezhe (Nanai) peoples living in China. It also turned out that this haplogroup included the ancient inhabitants of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Korean Peninsula. According to other studies, the ancestors of modern Japanese were residents of Hokkaido and migrants from mainland China who fled to the islands. The authors of the work once again confirmed this.

The map shows the location of the cave (black triangle) and ethnic groups,
with which researchers compared ancient people. A drawing from an article in Science Advance.

The first information of Russian travelers about Ulchi dates back to the XVII century. By this time, the locals were sedentary and engaged in fishing, fur trade and hunting deer, elk and sea animals. The Ulchi language belongs to the Tungusic-Manchurian group, which includes, among others, Even, Nanai and the Orochi language.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  03.02.2017