In March 2023, Jilin University team published a preliminary publication on SSRN in leading journal Nature, "A study of Han-Xiongnu war of 2000 years ago through a mass grave in Bayanbulag site from point of view of bioarchaeology." Burial pit in ruins of Bayanbulag, interpretation of Han-Hungarian war 2000 years ago from a biological point of view isotopes of oxygen and Sr of strontium. He is not a local shepherd, but son of a Han Dynasty farmer from Yellow River basin.

1. The ruins of a captured city

The site of Bayanbulag, "city of surrender", built in sixth year of Yuanfeng (105 BC) by Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty (meaning reception of Huns who surrendered here), is located in today's Bayan, South Gobi. Province, Outer Mongolia All individuals at Bayanbulag site in Prague (abbreviated BBS) came from mass graves. According to article, all of these individuals had sharp wounds on their bones and were buried together shortly after death. down were buried.

2. Strontium isotope analysis

The article analyzes in detail 87Sr/86Sr isotope analysis (ratio of strontium 87 and strontium 86) of these 14 ancients and found that ratio of these people ranges from 0.709979 to 0.711164, with an average of 0.710450±0.000320.

In pastures of Inner and Inner Mongolia, content of 87 Sr is usually low, and individual ratio of strontium Sr isotopes in indigenous ancient pastures ranges from 0.709322 to 0.709748 with an average value of 0.709535±0.000213. The strontium Sr isotope ratio of 14 ancient people found in Shoujiang City is much higher than that, apparently not among indigenous people of pastures.

Therefore, these 14 Han Dynasty soldiers are convinced that they all lived in region of Central Plains with a high content of Strontium 87, and soon after entering pastures (because if they eat food and water in pastures of area for a long time, strontium 87 will decrease), Not long after they were stationed on frontier, heavy fighting broke out and these Central Plains soldiers died. (These soldiers are not Hunnic soldiers as some netizens think)

3. Oxygen isotope analysis

The article indicates that using isotopic analysis of oxygen 18, range of ancient people living in pastures ranged from -13.4 ‰ to -9.5 ‰, on average -11.4 ± 1.9 ‰, while while oxygen range of 18 of 14 ancient Han dynasties far exceeded this range.

This situation is consistent with results of analysis of strontium isotopes. These 14 ancient people were not local pastures, but foreigners (not replaced locally), areas where they grow are not local pastures.

Fourth, gene analysis

Due to paternal Y, maternal mtDNA, and analysis of entire autosomal genes, article concludes that these people are clearly ancient Han soldiers, and there is no difference from modern Han nationality.

According to analysis of these 14 ancient people, their Y chromosomes are common types in ancient Yellow River basin and are still common in modern Han people, including O2a2b1a1a-F8 (33.3%), O2a2b1a2-F114 (16.7% ), Q1a1a1a-M120 (16.7%), C2s1a1a1a-M407 (8.3%), N1a2a1a-F1998 (8.3%), O1b1a2b-Z24433 (8.3%), O2a2b2b1b-AM01822 (8.3% ), of which O2 accounts for 58.3%. close to modern Han, and remaining C2 Nan-M407, O1b-Page59, N-F1998, Q-M120 also correspond to a high degree to characteristic types of modern Northern Han.

The conclusion from analysis of these Y chromosomes in article is that Y chromosome haplogroups found in BBS show a similar situation and were also found in Neolithic population from Yellow River basin. (The paternal type of Y-chromosome found at Bayanbulat site is consistent with position of ancient people in Yellow River basin since Neolithic), and paternal distant ancestors of these people descended from ancient people in Yellow River basin.

On maternal side, mitochondrial mtDNA types A, D4, D5, F2 and G accounted for 64.7%, which also largely corresponded to modern Han nationality.

Autosomal analysis showed that these ancient people were very close to modern Han people.

The article concludes that genome-wide analysis shows that BBS people have strong similarities with ancient and modern populations of Yellow River basin. In ancient and modern populations of Yellow River basin, ancient people of Han Dynasty found that these surrendered cities were Han warriors armies that died 2000 years ago. To protect state border, they left rural areas of Central Plains thousands of miles away, went into desert and died in battle.

The Admixture software briefly shows an autosomal comparison between ancient Han soldiers and Xiongnu (K = 7). It can be seen that these ancient soldiers of Han Dynasty are very similar to modern Northern Han, but completely different from Huns:

In addition, article also analyzes two ancient people D43 and D45, found in surrendered city (at that time they were mistaken for Xiongnu). With help of autosomal analysis, this must undoubtedly be a representative of Han army.

Because this article is pre-published on SSRN, we won't go into too many details. We wish paper to be successfully published in leading academic journal Nature and publish more data.