Scientists launch DNA test program on ancient human skeletons

Chinese scientists on Thursday launched a DNA test program on 22 ancient human skeletons that date back more than 2,000 years.

Scientists will conduct DNA tests on the bones and carry out micro-element analysis to collect demography and ethnology data, said Wang Wei, researcher with the Chinese Frontier Research Center of Jilin University and head of the program.

With the data, the scientists can analyze the diets and lifestyle habits and age structure of the people living in the Warring States Period (476 BC to 221 BC) as well as the agriculture and business development at that time, Wang said.

A total of 34 tombs of the Warring States Period were discovered in Zhangjiakou city of north China's Hebei province last September. Twenty-eight human skeletons were found in the tomb, of which 22 were complete.

Jilin University, which is based in northeast China's Jilin province, set up China's first archaeological DNA laboratory in 1998. Computer technology was used to reconstruct 3-D faces of a princess from the Laoshan Han Tomb (202BC- 9AD), which was discovered in Beijing in 1999.