Roopkund Lake, nestled in the Himalayas, holds a chilling secret: hundreds of ancient skeletons. Once thought to be victims of a single epidemic or a lost military expedition, recent genetic studies reveal a more complex, centuries-long story. The remains belong to distinct ancestral groups, including those linked to South Asia and Europe, suggesting multiple migration events and deaths over a millennium.

Roopkund Lake, nestled in the Himalayas, holds a chilling secret: hundreds of ancient skeletons. Once thought to be victims of a single epidemic or a lost military expedition,…

High in the Indian Himalayas, Roopkund sits like a shallow bowl pressed into the rock, half the year locked under snow and ice, the rest briefly exposed to air that barely feels…