The genomic origin of Zana of Abkhazia

Enigmatic phenomena have sparked the imagination of people around the globe intocreating folkloric creatures. One prime example is Zana of Abkhazia (South Caucasus),a well-documented 19th century female who was captured living wild in the forest.Zana's appearance was sufficiently unusual, that she was referred to by locals as anAlmasty—the analog of Bigfoot in the Caucasus. Although the exact location ofZana's burial site was unknown, the grave of her son, Khwit, was identified in 1971.The genomes of Khwit and the alleged Zana skeleton were sequenced to an averagedepth of ca. 3 using ancient DNA techniques. The identical mtDNA and parent-offspring relationship between the two indicated that the unknown woman wasindeed Zana. Population genomic analyses demonstrated that Zana's immediategenetic ancestry can likely be traced to present-day East-African populations. Wespeculate that Zana might have had a genetic disorder such as congenital generalizedhypertrichosis which could partially explain her strange behavior, lack of speech, andlong body hair. Our findings elucidate Zana's unfortunate story and provide a clearexample of how prejudices of the time led to notions of cryptic hominids that are stillheld and transmitted by some today.