How humans settled the roof of the world

Modern inhabitants of the Tibetan Plateau are descendants of people who have lived there for 5,000 years. In the biggest study of its kind, researchers sequenced ancient genomes from the remains of 89 individuals unearthed from 29 archæological sites. The genomes suggest that Tibet’s first settlers arrived from the east — in contrast to the rest of South and Central Asia. And researchers saw the increasing prevalence of a variant of the EPAS1 gene that allows people to thrive at high altitudes.