More than a decade after they were found, the remains of a cave in the Chinese province of Yunnan have given up their secrets, with a genetic analysis revealing where their ancestors would go.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyzed the nuclear and mitochondrial sequence from a 14,000-year-old skull and found that it was related to populations who were the first to set foot in the Americas.
Since their discovery in 2008, the dozens of late Paleolithic human bones left behind in MaluDong in China's south-west have left anthropologists scratching their heads over who they might have belonged to.
Their age can only be estimated from the surrounding features of their grave site if there is not enoughCollagen. It's not clear if the skull fragment and the top end of a femur are from the same person.
The person who left them behind represented a mix of archaic and modern characteristics.
They may have been an ancestral human clinging to survival in Asia's south east. Maybe they were a mix of old and modern humans.
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To find out where Mengzi Ren was in our family tree, the researchers used a standard reference model to map out what they could extract from the genetic material.
The matriarchal branch of the family is now represented by just two modern day sub-populations due to the fact that the genetic material is only passed down from a mother to her child.
Megzi Ren's close ties with modern humans were verified by a close look at her nuclear genetics.
Bing Su is an archeologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Red Deer Cave people were modern humans, not an archaic species like Neanderthals or Denisovans, according to the findings.
There were already well structured, diversified populations in the region thousands of years ago, so it makes sense that Mengzi Ren has less in common with people who now live in the southeast.
Asia wasn't populated from the bottom up. There is strong evidence that a small group of humans from the north went to the east to settle the wilderness of the Americas.
There is strong evidence of ties between modern Asian populations and America's First Nations, even if they are not related to the same person.
"This data will help us paint a more complete picture of how our ancestors migrate but also contain important information about how humans change their physical appearance by adapting to local environments over time, such as the variations in skin color in response to changes in sunlight exposure."
If everything goes to plan, other people will be able to decipher her genes. Red Deer Cave has more secrets to reveal than any other site in Asia.
Today's human population traveled, settled, and explored every inch of our planet within those bones.
The research was published in a journal.
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