Bronze-Age Co-Burials at Dongshantou, Jilin: Ancient Genomes Reveal Patrilineality and Female Exogamy

An ancient-genome study of the Late Bronze-Age Dongshantou site in Jilin offers new clues about social organization in Northeast Asia. The paper reports genome-wide data from 11 individuals across two co-burials (M6 and M7).

Combining uniparental markers with several kinship estimators, the authors identify three first-degree relationships plus a number of second- and third-degree ties linking individuals across the two tombs. Strikingly, all the males share the same Y-haplogroup C2b, while mitochondrial haplotypes are highly diverse.

This pattern of uniform paternal ancestry alongside diverse maternal lineages points to a single patrilineal clan with female exogamy. Note: the article first appeared as a preprint on 11 February 2026 and was formally published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences on 20 April 2026.

Source: Danyang Ge et al. bioRxiv preprint, 2026-02-11.