Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="1sam" data-source="post: 27870071" data-attributes="member: 557062"><img src="https://cms.accuweather.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/NeelimaPhoto.png?w=632" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Neelima Vallangi is a journalist and photographer who went on a trek in the Himalayas that included a stop at Roopkund Lake. (AccuWeather)The group was on its way to Junargali, a jagged ridge with a panoramic view of the high Himalayas that sits far above the lake.“We saw some skulls and the leg bones and big arm bones and all these things just piled up,” she told AccuWeather.“It’s not like you just walk in and there are just skeletons all over. Some of them are in the lake, apparently, and some of them are probably buried in the slopes in the snow, so sometimes when the snow is completely melted you could see them," Vallangi continued. "But when we went, the whole region was completely covered in snow so we couldn’t see any other skeletons scattered around apart from the pile."A year after Vallangi's trek, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-12059564" target="_blank">the first ancient human genome was sequenced</a>, revolutionizing research into the past. The cold case of Roopkund Lake was heating up. Bone samples from 38 skeletal remains were sent to labs around the world for full genomic analysis. The results of the five-year-long study, published in 2019, were stunning.The <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11357-9" target="_blank">new study</a> revealed that the 38 skeletons belonged to three genetically distinct groups and were deposited at the lake during multiple events over a 1,000-year period.The new results show that there were 23 people with South Asian ancestry at Roopkund, but they died during one or several events between the 7th and 10th centuries A.D.Incredibly, the study revealed, another group of 14 victims died there a thousand years later — most likely during a single event in the 19th century. Furthermore, this group had a genetic ancestry tied to the Mediterranean, specifically Greece and Crete. (There was one sample that had South-East Asian origin, also from the 19th century.) “Now we see people died in multiple events between the seventh and tenth century and someone else died in the 18th or 19th century, so now we don’t know exactly what happened at all,” Vallangi told AccuWeather.The discovery of Mediterranean migrants in India is particularly surprising. There is no historical evidence or explanation for who these people were and what they were doing deep in the Himalayas.The year “1800 is not that long ago. People would remember if something unusual happened," Vallangi said. "I think it would have been passed down in oral history or it must be there in the collective memory of locals because it’s a pretty remote place. So if a foreign-looking group came there and they all perished in the mountains, it seems highly unlikely that nobody would know or remember such a bizarre incident.”Interestingly, advancements in science have raised more questions than answers. The mystery of what happened at Skeleton Lake doesn't appear any closer to being solved.“Now that I’ve read all the studies, it’s like I’ve put together all of it in my mind and I feel like, 'Wow, this is a crazy mystery!'” Vallangi said.It's a difficult archaeological site due to its remoteness, the extreme weather, and the fact that, over the years, the skeletons have been moved around by trekkers and even taken home as souvenirs. In fact, the trek became so popular the environment began to degrade and the trek past Roopkund Lake is now banned.More than a decade after that frigid morning when she first stood at the edge of Skeleton Lake, the story continues to grip Vallangi's imagination. But with such little evidence, she wonders whether the world will ever know the truth about what happened there.“Who are these people? What happened there? Why are they all going there to die in that one lake?" she still wonders. "Yeah, I think it’s a very interesting story ... I don’t know how this will ever be solved.”</blockquote>

Verification: Hata thunen beduwama keeyada? (60 bedeema thuna)

Top Bottom