THE MYSTERIOUS origins of an ancient tribe whose bodies were found perfectly preserved in a desert in China have finally been identified.

DNA analysis of Bronze Age mummies discovered in tombs in the Tarim Basin reveal they belonged to indigenous folk descended from ancient Eurasians.

6Hundreds of near-perfectly persevered mummies were discovered in China’s Taklamakan Desert in the 1990sCredit: AP6The mummies’ unusual features, clothing and diet sparked a decades-long debate over where they came fromCredit: Wenying Li, Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology6Taklamakan mummies were buried in boat coffinsCredit: Wenying Li, Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology6The arid desert provided the perfect conditions to naturally mummify their remainsCredit: Wenying Li, Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology

The finding flies in the face of previous research on the corpses, which had suggested that they belonged to western travellers.

The groups’ Western features and unusual dress and diet had led experts to conclude that they were migrants from southern Russia.

The new research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, puts to bed once and for all a debate that has raged for decades.

In the 1990s, roughly 300 mummies dating from between 2,000 B.C. to 200 A.D. were discovered in the Taklamakan Desert in China’s Xinjiang region.

The area’s dry, arid conditions and freezing cold nights naturally mummified the remains of locals, who were buried in boat-like tombs in the desert.

The most famous of these mummies is “the Beauty of Xiaohe”, whose facial features, woollen clothing, hair and even eyelashes remain intact.