Cultural and demic co-diffusion of Tubo Empire on Tibetan Plateau

Kongyang Zhu; Panxin Du; Jiyuan Li; Jianlin Zhang; Xiaojun Hu; Hailiang Meng; Liang Chen; Boyan Zhou; Xiaomin Yang; Jianxue Xiong; Edward Allen; Xiaoying Ren; Yi Ding; Yiran Xu; Xin Chang; Yao Yu; Sheng Han; Guanghui Dong; Chuan-Chao Wang; Shaoqing Wen

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.105636

Cultural and demic co-diffusion of Tubo Empire on Tibetan Plateau

iScience. 2022 Nov 22;25(12):105636. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105636. eCollection 2022 Dec 22.

Authors

Kongyang Zhu^{1

2}, Panxin Du^{3

4}, Jiyuan Li⁵, Jianlin Zhang⁶, Xiaojun Hu⁵, Hailiang Meng³, Liang Chen⁷, Boyan Zhou⁸, Xiaomin Yang⁹, Jianxue Xiong¹, Edward Allen¹, Xiaoying Ren¹, Yi Ding¹, Yiran Xu¹, Xin Chang¹, Yao Yu¹, Sheng Han³, Guanghui Dong¹⁰, Chuan-Chao Wang^{2

3

9

11

12}, Shaoqing Wen^{1

3

13

14}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Archaeological Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Cellular Stress Biology, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China.
³ Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, Collaborative Innovation Center for Genetics and Development, School of Life Sciences, and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
⁵ Qinghai Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute, Xining 810007, China.
⁶ Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology, Xi'an 710054, China.
⁷ China-Central Asia Human Environmental "the Belt and Road" Joint Laboratory, Northwest University, Xi'an 710127, China.
⁸ Division of Biostatistics, Department of Population Health, School of Medicine, New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA.
⁹ Department of Anthropology and Ethnology, Institute of Anthropology, School of Sociology and Anthropology, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
¹⁰ Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
¹¹ State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China.
¹² Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
¹³ MOE Laboratory for National Development and Intelligent Governance, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
¹⁴ Center for the Belt and Road Archaeology and Ancient Civilizations, Shanghai 200433, China.

Abstract

A high point of Tibetan Plateau (TP) civilization, the expansive Tubo Empire (618-842 AD) wielded great influence across ancient western China. However, whether the Tubo expansion was cultural or demic remains unclear due to sparse ancient DNA sampling. Here, we reported ten ancient genomes at 0.017- to 0.867-fold coverages from the Dulan site with typical Tubo archaeological culture dating to 1308-1130 BP. Nine individuals from three different grave types have close relationship with previously reported ancient highlanders from the southwestern Himalayas and modern core-Tibetan populations. A Dulan-related Tubo ancestry contributed overwhelmingly (95%-100%) to the formation of modern Tibetans. A genetic outlier with dominant Eurasian steppe-related ancestry suggesting a potential population movement into the Tubo-controlled regions from Central Asia. Together with archeological evidence from burial styles and customs, our study suggested the impact of the Tubo empire on the northeast edge of the TP involved both cultural and demic diffusion.

Keywords: Evolutionary biology; Paleobiology; Paleogenetics.