Depends on how you define die out. They didn’t leave a genetic mark much beyond those specific adaptations. Generally speaking waves of farmer expansion seem to be more actual literal expansions than cultural diffusions of farming techniques, despite some mDNA sometimes sticking around from the previous hunter gatherer populations.
Pre-farming people so clearly do or did intermix with farmers, perhaps they culturally assimilated or perhaps their women and men where just enslaved, who knows, but both their small numbers and a probable lack of some adaptations puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to leaving a genetic mark in the long run.
Culturally they are today pretty much extinct and replaced by modern “NeoTibetans”, which ironically may also be culturally swapped by Chinese eventually, but it is hard to say what their culture was several thousand years earlier. Its perfectly possible that the expanding farmers adopted a lot of cultural influence that however got lost in the long march until reliable written records first show up.
Note: It was only later proposed that Tibetan adaptations are “better” (or rather different ) than Andean adaptations because they had more time to evolve, in the previous inhabitants of Tibet, since we know from archaeological evidence peoples have lived there for far longer than just the past few thousand years.
Also Razib Khan on the Gene Expression blog writes a lot about the interplay of history and genetics (genes can document population or cultural shifts and help us build a better picture of history, but they can also be the causes of such shifts—say the expansion of lactose tolerance in Western Eurasia or resistance of Africans/Europeans to old world diseases that killed off many Native Americans)
Did the ancient Tibetans die out or did they just get assimilated into the Chinese farmers?
See, now you’re just getting me curious about this stuff.
Nothing wrong with curiosity. :)
Depends on how you define die out. They didn’t leave a genetic mark much beyond those specific adaptations. Generally speaking waves of farmer expansion seem to be more actual literal expansions than cultural diffusions of farming techniques, despite some mDNA sometimes sticking around from the previous hunter gatherer populations.
Pre-farming people so clearly do or did intermix with farmers, perhaps they culturally assimilated or perhaps their women and men where just enslaved, who knows, but both their small numbers and a probable lack of some adaptations puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to leaving a genetic mark in the long run.
Culturally they are today pretty much extinct and replaced by modern “NeoTibetans”, which ironically may also be culturally swapped by Chinese eventually, but it is hard to say what their culture was several thousand years earlier. Its perfectly possible that the expanding farmers adopted a lot of cultural influence that however got lost in the long march until reliable written records first show up.
A somewhat related article in the NYT.
Note: It was only later proposed that Tibetan adaptations are “better” (or rather different ) than Andean adaptations because they had more time to evolve, in the previous inhabitants of Tibet, since we know from archaeological evidence peoples have lived there for far longer than just the past few thousand years.
Also Razib Khan on the Gene Expression blog writes a lot about the interplay of history and genetics (genes can document population or cultural shifts and help us build a better picture of history, but they can also be the causes of such shifts—say the expansion of lactose tolerance in Western Eurasia or resistance of Africans/Europeans to old world diseases that killed off many Native Americans)