Cenxun Cave: Sui–Tang Southern Lineages

Cenxun Cave sits in the rolling karst of Pingguo County, Baise City, Guangxi — a landscape of limestone cliffs and rice terraces that has shaped human lives for millennia. The burials and remains dated between 440 CE and 658 CE place these individuals in a fluid historical window: the late Northern and Southern era, the Sui unification (581–618 CE), and the early Tang expansion (from 618 CE onward). Archaeological data indicates local practices that likely blend long-standing southern lifeways with increasing connections to imperial networks during the Sui–Tang transformation.

Limited material evidence recovered at the cave (contextualized burials rather than rich grave goods) suggests these were local agrarian communities rather than elite migration cohorts. Regional ceramic types and landscape use imply continuity of southern cultural practices. Because only three individuals were sampled, conclusions about population origins remain provisional. However, the genetic signal combined with the archaeological context paints a cinematic picture: small-scale farming communities nested in rugged karst valleys, negotiating new political horizons as northern dynastic powers consolidated control over southern reaches.

Three individuals from Cenxun Cave were successfully typed for mitochondrial DNA. The maternal lineages observed are within haplogroup M: two samples assigned to broad M and one to subclade M10. Haplogroup M is an ancient maternal lineage widespread across East Asia and into South and Southeast Asia; its presence here is consistent with long-standing southern-East Asian maternal ancestry in Guangxi.

M10 is a lineage found at low to moderate frequencies in parts of East Asia and often appears in ancient and modern southern Chinese and neighboring populations. These mtDNA results tentatively indicate maternal continuity with southern East Asian gene pools during the Sui–Tang transition. Crucially, no reliable Y‑DNA haplogroup data were reported for these three samples, and the small sample size (n = 3) makes any population-level inference preliminary. Archaeogenetics here functions best as a hint: the maternal signal aligns with archaeological expectations of local southern ancestry, but broader conclusions—about admixture, migration, or demographic shifts—require many more samples and genome-wide data.

Researchers should treat these findings as an initial window: informative but limited in scope.