High in the Himalayas of India, amid the snow-capped peaks, nestles a mystery.
印度区域的喜马拉雅山高地，白雪覆盖的山巅之中，栖息着一个谜。
Roopkund Lake is a shallow body of water filled with human bones - the skeletons of hundreds of individuals.
路普康湖水体很浅，充满着人骨--数百个人的骷髅。
It's these that give the lake its other name, Skeleton Lake, and no one knows how the remains came to be there.
因此这个湖有了另一个名字，骷髅湖。没人知道这些遗骸是如何到达这里的。
One hypothesis is that some catastrophe, a single event such as a powerful storm, had befallen a large group of people. But DNA analysis of 38 of the skeletons has turned that idea on its head.
一个假说是某些灾难降临了一大群人，比如说强风暴这样的单次事件。但是对38具骷髅的DNA分析完全改变了这个说法的思路。
The remains appear to come from distinct groups of people from as far as the Mediterranean, and they arrived at the lake several times over a 1,000-year span.
遗骸似乎来自不同的人群，最远的来自地中海。他们在1000年的期限中好几次到达了这个湖。
"Through the use of biomolecular analyses, such as ancient DNA, stable isotope dietary reconstruction, and radiocarbon dating, we discovered that the history of Roopkund Lake is more complex than we ever anticipated," said geneticist David Reich of Harvard Medical School.
“通过使用生物分子分析，比如远古DNA、稳定同位素膳食重建以及放射性碳定年法，我们发现路普康湖的历史比我们预料的更为复杂。“哈佛医学院的基因学家大卫·赖希说道。
The story began to unfold a decade ago. Geneticist Kumarasamy Thangaraj of India's CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 72 of the skeletons.
十年前，这个故事开始展开。印度科学与工业研究委员会细胞与分子生物中心的基因学家Kumarasamy Thangaraj测定了72具骷髅的线粒体DNA。
As Thangaraj and his late colleague Lalji Singh had expected, some of the skeletons had DNA consistent with a local Indian origin.
正如Thangaraj和他已故的同事Lalji Singh预料的那样，有些骷髅的DNA与当地印度裔一致。
But some did not. Several skeletons appeared to have originated around West Eurasia.
但有些不是。几具骷髅似乎是起源于西欧亚大陆。
This analysis revealed three distinct groups. The largest consisted of 23 individuals with DNA similar to that of people from present-day India. Apart from this, they seemed genetically unrelated.
这项分析揭露了三个不同的群。最大群体有23人，基因与现代印度人相似。除此之外，他们在基因上似乎毫无联系。
The second-largest group, comprising 14 individuals, was a huge surprise. Their DNA was most similar to people in present-day Crete and Greece.
第二大群有14人，很令人惊讶。他们的DNA与现今克里特和希腊的人最为相似。
Finally, the one remaining individual had DNA suggesting a Southeast Asian origin.
最后，剩下的一个人的DNA表明他有东南亚血统。
Even more surprising was the staggered arrival times of the groups. Radiocarbon dating placed the Indian-related bones between the 7th and 10th centuries CE.
更让人惊讶的是这些群体到来的 时间。放射性碳定年法表明，印度血统的骨头年代在公元7世纪和10世纪之间。
It's possible they were divided into different groups at different times within this timespan.
有可能他们在这个时间期限内被划分为不同时间的不同群组。
But the other two groups, from the Mediterranean and from Southeast Asia, were dated to between the 17th and 20th centuries CE.
但是另外两个来自地中海和东南亚的群组年代在公元17世纪至20世纪之间。
That's just a few hundred years ago. And it's possible that the remains that haven't been tested could include other groups, from other times and other regions.
距现在只有几百年。有可能没有检测过的遗骸包括其他年代其他地区的其他群组。
