New Developments Add More Intrigue to Unsolved Skeleton Discovery in Indian Lake

Who were these people, and how did they die?  An expedition in 2004 provided the answers, and you are about to learn them.

That’s what happened in 1942 when a British forest guard, hiking nearby, saw the beautiful lake and wanted a closer look. Peering into the water, he realized he was looking at human skeletons. Although he didn’t know it at the time, over 200 were full skeletons.

It just so happened that the British forest guard was hiking during the warmer time of year when the lake was not completely frozen over. Thus, he was able to get close to peer into the water. That’s when he found almost 800 remains.

One theory was that this was a troop of Japanese soldiers who died trying to make their way through the mountains in 1841. Yet another was that these were the remains of an Indian king, his family, and his attendants who died in a blizzard 870 years before.  

The British sent a team of scientists to the lake when the discovery was made to see if these were actually the remains of Japanese soldiers. However, the study determined that the bones were too old to fit that particular theory. 

Or, perhaps, these were victims of an epidemic who were buried in the lake. In nearby villages, a popular folk song tells the story of a hail storm that killed people near the lake. 

Further study revealed that the skeletons were quite old, and researchers were not able to determine how all of these people died in the same spot. More study was needed, which revealed some fascinating details.  

A detailed study of the almost 800 sets of bones determined that none of the dead were infants or children, and some were older women. All seemed to be in good health, but these studies were all going to be disproved years later.

These researchers disproved many earlier theories, determining that the people were not part of an army since no weapons were found. Also, they were not traders since no animals were found. Thirdly, they did not suffer from illness. 

It seemed very likely that the dead consisted of a family going through the mountains for some reason, who were killed along with their porters or guides whom they had hired to help them.   

With most of the injuries being on the heads and shoulders, scientists theorized that whatever killed them came from above. Something fell upon them in a way that did such serious damage to their heads that it killed them.

The song goes on to tell the story that the goddess threw stones from the sky onto the invaders. Scientists assume that this song refers to a sudden and very dangerous hailstorm that hit the travelers and pounded them, killing them.  

As the hailstones fell by the thousands for hours, pounding the travelers, these unfortunate people were literally killed where they stood. The remains of these poor travelers lay in the lake for over 1,200 years until the British guard discovered them.  

In 2019, Nature magazine published the results of the study, written by 28 authors from 16 research centers in India, the U.S., and Germany. Many of their findings disputed what had been revealed in earlier research.

Harney further stated, “It is still not clear what happened at Roopkund Lake, but we can now be certain that the deaths of these individuals cannot be explained by a single event.” It seemed that the hailstorm theory had been put to bed.

Also, the people from South Asia do not appear to come from the same population. “Some of them have ancestry that would be more common in groups from the north of the subcontinent, while others have ancestry that would be more common from more southern groups,” says Ms. Harney.

The other group arrived anywhere from the 17th-20th centuries. This means that obviously, the groups died in separate events. But what is strange is that most had the same type of head and shoulder injuries!

Some people ate mostly from the local animals, but others mostly vegetable and plant-based foods such as wheat, barley, and rice, or animals that ate those foods. Ancestry research indicated that one group was from Western South Asia and one from Eastern South Asia.

Since no weapons or trading materials were found, and the lake is not on a trade route, it is unlikely that these were tradesmen or soldiers. The genetic studies didn’t find any evidence of some kind of disease, so they didn’t die from an epidemic. 

As for the second group, it seems that these individuals were not part of a related group, but were born in the eastern Mediterranean, probably in Crete. There is no data as to why they ended up at the lake.

The mystery lives on, despite years of study. As the findings come out, there are even more questions left unanswered. Hopefully, groups of anthropologists and scientists will continue to study this bizarre story. As Ms. Harney says, “We are still searching for answers.”