Ancient People on the Loess Plateau Carried Southern Genes: Ancient DNA Pushes Known North–South Interaction 800 km Northward

A Fudan University team led by Wang Ke, Li Jin, and Li Hui has sequenced 23 ancient individuals from the Longshan period through the Zhou dynasty unearthed on the Loess Plateau—around the great Ordos bend of the Yellow River. Published in Cell Reports, the study reveals long-distance north-south population interactions in prehistory and pushes the known range of such exchange roughly 800 kilometers northward.

Genome-wide data show that Yangshao-related Central Plains ancestry formed the main component of the region’s people, but with clear inflows from both the Eurasian steppe to the north and southern China. The results suggest the northern Shaanxi plateau was not an isolated enclave but a contact zone linking the Central Plains, the steppe, and southern populations.

This is the very region where early Western Zhou civilization emerged. The genetic evidence supports the picture of a meeting ground where diverse prehistoric traditions converged and collided. Guangming Daily covered the study on 20 September, noting that extending the north-south interaction boundary by some 800 km substantially rewrites the spatial map of prehistoric population contact in China.