Skeleton Lake Mystery: Remains Found in Roopkund From Ritual Suicide, Disease or Battle? DNA Analysis Reveals the Truth Behind Mass Deaths

Roopkund Lake earned the nickname "Skeleton Lake" after hundreds of human skeletons were found there. However, the mystery behind the mass deaths had already been solved, at least to some, as others felt there were more questions left unanswered.

Mysterious Skeleton Lake in India

A forest official from India named H K Madhwal discovered hundreds of human remains stacked in and around Roopkund Lake in 1942. When he described the strange discovery - finding around 300 to 800 remains individuals of individuals in a hidden lake, those people were believed to have perished tragically.

The cold Himalayas preserved the human remains. When the horrific mountain find was made public in the late 1950s, it sparked curiosity and led to various ongoing investigations.

Most of the popular notions were quickly discarded by scientific investigation. These bones belonged to men, women, and children. They were not the remnants of a vanished army, as there were speculations they were from the Japanese army. Also, there was no sign of horses or weaponry other than a solitary iron spearhead.

There was no sign of a fight, ritual suicide, homicide, or widespread illness among the bones. Furthermore, Roopkund was not a cemetery because most residents were in good health and ranged in age from 18 to 35.

The team's geographic study disproved the notion of traders stranded in the mountains, which found no commercial route connecting India and Tibet. The mountains constitute an impenetrable barrier to the north of Roopkund. Also, there were no goods or beasts of burden with the bodies. Instead, the recovered artifacts only included dozens of leather slippers, pieces of parasols made of bamboo and birch bark, and bangles made of seashells and glass.

Based on the perimortem injuries on the skulls, a forensic examination conducted in 2004 found that the best theory was that a group of Indian pilgrims, including men and women, helped by native porters from the region, were struck by huge hail at Roopkund in a single occurrence in the 9th century.

They were rumored to have gone on the famed Nanda Devi Raj Jat Yatra, a once-every-12-year Hindu pilgrimage still observed today. Roopkund is traveling to Homkund, the last stop on this strenuous foot trek. Also, Nanda Devi devotees wear bangles on the pilgrimage.

After conducting the analysis, Tom Higham concluded that the victims had died instantly, within hours of each other, in a single incident. Hailstorms are infamous in this area of the Himalayas, destroying crops and causing property damage.

The researchers concluded that a group of pilgrims were killed by enormous hailstones around 800 A.D. when they were caught in a storm on the exposed ridge above Roopkund. The dead had been pushed into the lake and its surroundings by avalanches and landslides throughout the years.

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Mystery Solved or Not?

However, not everyone was convinced that the mystery was already solved.

It became clear by mid-2017 that the Roopkund bones belonged to three different populations -- Roopkund A possessed typical South Asian heritage and had nothing in common with one another and genetically varied, seemingly originating from many regions and communities in India; The DNA of the lone individual Roopkund C, was typical of Southeast Asia; and Roopkund B group, which was made up of a combination of men and women whose DNA does not appear to be Indian or even Asians.

"Of all places in the world, India is one of the places most heavily sampled in terms of human diversity," per David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard. "We have sampled three hundred different groups in India, and there's nothing there even close to Roopkund B."

Ayushi Nayak from Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, who was part of a 2019 study, said there was new evidence pointing to a group of people who are non-Indians, more likely close to the modern-day Eastern Mediterranean people. Their remains found in Roopkund Lake were a surprise as there was no evidence that those people reached the Himalayas at the time.

Mushrif-Tripathy, also part of the 2019 study, believed the Skeleton Lake mystery was yet to be solved.

"According to me, the mystery is not at all solved. We have more questions than answers," he said.

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