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ArticleVerified 2026-10-21
Roopkund's skeletons — the DNA says they did not die together
The Roopkund skeletons were long blamed on one hailstorm. DNA from 38 of them, read in 2019, found three groups who died about 1,000 years apart.
High in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, below the peaks of Trishul and Nanda Ghunti, sits a small glacial lake called Roopkund. When the snow melts, bones show at its edge and under its shallow water: the remains of several hundred people. For a long time one story explained them. A single party, caught by a single hailstorm, died together in a single night.
The story everyone told
The local telling makes it a royal pilgrimage. A king of Kanauj, Raja Jasdhaval, set out for the shrine of Nanda Devi with his queen, servants and a troupe of dancers, and a storm of great hailstones killed them all near the lake. Studies of the bones in the last century found head injuries that some read as blows from above, which seemed to fit. A radiocarbon date gave one time of death, in the ninth century. One event, one cause, one date.
What the DNA found
In 2019 a team writing in Nature Communications read genome-wide DNA from 38 of the skeletons and dated 37 of them directly. The people did not belong together:
- 23 of them had ancestry within the range of people living in South Asia today. They date to around 800 CE, and even their own dates do not all overlap, so they may not have died at one time either.
- 14 of them had ancestry typical of the eastern Mediterranean, closest to people living today in mainland Greece and Crete. They date to around 1800 CE.
- One person had Southeast Asian-related ancestry, and also dates to around 1800 CE.
So the bones were laid down in at least two separate events, about a thousand years apart. The single storm cannot be the whole answer.
Photos: Schwiki (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Abhijith Shastry from Bangalore, India (CC BY 2.0) — via Wikimedia Commons, resized.
What it does not say
The study is careful, and this page tries to be too. It does not say the second group came from Crete; its authors write that the results by no means imply that. It does not say how anyone died. It offers a pilgrimage as one possible reason for some of the older group to be on this route, and it calls the later group a puzzle. Who those fifteen people were, and why they climbed to a Himalayan lake around 1800 CE, is still not known.
Going there
Roopkund is a trekking destination, reached over the meadows of Bedni Bugyal, but its status changes. Check with the Uttarakhand forest department before you plan a trek, and treat the site as a grave: the district has asked for the bones to be protected, and visitors have been carrying them away.
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Questions people ask
Did the people at Roopkund all die in one storm?
No. That was the old story: one party, one night, one hailstorm. In 2019 a study in Nature Communications read genome-wide DNA from 38 skeletons and dated them. It found three distinct groups, and the radiocarbon dates show the remains were laid down in at least two separate events, about a thousand years apart.
Who were the Roopkund skeletons?
The study found 23 people whose ancestry falls within the range of present-day South Asians, dated to around 800 CE. Fourteen had ancestry typical of the eastern Mediterranean, closest to people living today in mainland Greece and Crete, and one had Southeast Asian-related ancestry. Those fifteen date to around 1800 CE.
Were the Roopkund skeletons from Crete?
The paper says plainly that its results do not mean that group came from the island of Crete. Genetically they sit closest to present-day people of mainland Greece and Crete, which points to a region, not a home town. Why they were at a Himalayan lake around 1800 CE is still not known.
Can you trek to Roopkund?
Roopkund is a trekking destination in Chamoli district, but whether the trail is open, and on what permits, changes. Confirm the current status with the Uttarakhand forest department before you plan anything. The district has also asked that the bones be protected: never move or take any of them.