Cave People of the Himalaya

Liesl Clark
2012-02-15

9
0 min

National Geographic Television’s Cave People of the Himalaya features American archaeologist Dr. Mark Aldenderfer’s expedition to explore burial sites of the Upper Mustang region of Nepal. Human remains and artifacts found in these cave tombs provide new insights into the lives and practices of peoples who inhabited this area thousands of years ago. In the 1990s, a high Himalayan cave in Upper Mustang, Nepal was discovered to contain 42 ancient people, buried on wooden bunk beds. 20 years after they were discovered technology has changed, and now, rather than testing for DNA in the marrow of leg bones, scientists tend to search for DNA using teeth. Dr. Mark Aldenderfer uses carbon dating to determine that the burials spanned over 450 years. This indicates these people adapted well to the "high and dry" climate of Nepal's Upper Mustang region, and thrived there for a long time.