Figure 1 - uploaded by Elena Gigli
Content may be subject to copyright.
Pazyryk burials from the Altai Mountains. A. Geographical location of Pazyryk culture sites in the Altai regions of South Siberia, Kazakhstan and Western Mongolia. B. Pazyryk burial from Baga Turgen Gol site, Bayan-O  ̈ lgiy province, Western Mongolia. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048904.g001 

Pazyryk burials from the Altai Mountains. A. Geographical location of Pazyryk culture sites in the Altai regions of South Siberia, Kazakhstan and Western Mongolia. B. Pazyryk burial from Baga Turgen Gol site, Bayan-O ̈ lgiy province, Western Mongolia. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048904.g001 

Source publication
Article
Full-text available
A recent discovery of Iron Age burials (Pazyryk culture) in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia may shed light on the mode and tempo of the generation of the current genetic east-west population admixture in Central Asia. Studies on ancient mitochondrial DNA of this region suggest that the Altai Mountains played the role of a geographical barrier betwe...

Contexts in source publication

Context 1
... Central Asia has been a crossroad between West and East Eurasian people leading to the current high population genetic admixture and diversity. The origin of this diversity may go back as early as the Iron Age, more than two thousand years ago, with the dispersal of mounted pastoral nomads across the Eurasian steppes [1,2,3]. The present study deals with early contacts between West and East Eurasian populations and specifically those that occurred in the Altai region (Central Asia). Because the Altai Mountains represent a natural boundary between West and East Eurasian steppes, this region is key to understanding demographic events in the steppes of Central Asia. Archaeological work conducted by a Spanish–French–Mongo- lian team in the Mongolian Altai during the period 2005–2007 discovered burial sites belonging to the Pazyryk culture. This was the first time that this culture was found in Mongolia [4,5] Pazyryk is the name given to Iron Age nomadic tribes who inhabited the high steppes of the Altai Mountains between the fifth and third centuries BC. This culture is known from the discoveries of stone tumuli holding frozen bodies of warriors buried with their horses and their weapons [6,7]. Pazyryk culture sites were first described in the Altai region of South Siberia and East Kazakhstan [6,7,8,9,10]. More recently, two different expeditions [5,11] also discovered Pazyryk burials in the Mongolian Altai, indicating that this Iron Age people had also spread into East Asia (Fig. 1). The Pazyryks have traditionally been associated with the Eastern Scythians. Scythians, whose history is well-known from the ancient texts of Herodotus (484–425 BC), was the name that the Greeks gave to a number of separate Indo-European-speaking nomadic groups living in the region encompassing the Pontic- Caspian steppe (in Eastern Europe) and the steppe of Central Asia. The Scythian culture (7th-2nd century BC) flourished in this region from local Indo-European peoples that emerged at the Pontic-Caspian steppe in about 2000BC and expanded eastward until they reached the Altai Mountains. Advances in technology that favoured mounted nomadic pastoralism were the triggers for the expansion of Scythian culture across the Western Eurasian steppe. The end of Scythian period might be related with the westward migrations of nomadic Turkomongolian tribes coming from East Asia since the 3rd century BC, which marked the end of Indo-European domination of the steppe [12,13,14,15]. Archaeological findings, almost entirely provided by burial site discoveries, documented that the Scythians had European morphological features [7,8,12]. However, several recent works focusing on ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of Eastern Scythian burials [9,10,11,16,17,18,19] revealed that this population has a mixed mtDNA composition of West and East Eurasian lineages. This is particularly interesting for the timing of the early contacts between European and Asian people in Altai because all ancient DNA samples analysed so far from Central Asia belonging to a period before the Iron Age bore West Eurasian lineages [18,20]. These molecular data raise two likely hypotheses for the origin of the genetic diversity and admixture among the Iron Age inhabitants of the Altai: 1) people holding west Eurasian lineages arrived at Altai Mountains with the eastward migration of Scythians and, once settled, they began to establish relationships with the neighbouring communities from East Asia holding East Eurasian lineages; 2) this was the result of the admixture between the native people inhabiting either sides of the Altai Mountains (people with West Eurasian lineages in Western Altai and East Eurasian lineages in the Eastern Altai), as a result of a demographic expansion during the Scythian period. Hence, the second hypothesis would provide support to the cultural transmission against the demic diffusion during the Scythian period. The skeletal remains unearthed by our team from Bronze and Iron Age tumuli in the Mongolian Altai offer a unique opportunity to get further insights into the ancient Altaians. Here, we aim to shed light on the origin of the current east-west population admixture in Central Asia, specifically in the Altai region, by analyzing the mitochondrial DNA lineages of these skeletons. Owing to the clear geographical structuring of the East and West Eurasian lineages in Central Asia population, mtDNA is particularly suited for the study of admixture in this region [18]. This study may contribute to providing early evidence of population admixture between European and East Asian people, as well as the underlying causes behind this demographic event in the Eurasian steppes. Skeletal remains from 19 individuals of Bronze and Iron Age [5] were retrieved from four archaeological sites located in Bayan-O ̈ lgiy province (Mongolia, Altai) (Fig. 1, Table 1). For the nineteen exhumed individuals, teeth and bone samples were taken in the field by one of us (XJ) following sterility criteria and were stored in cold conditions. Afterwards, samples were taken to the laboratory dedicated to paleogenetic studies at the Universitat Aut `noma de Barcelona where they were processed. Independent replications were performed at the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF). For DNA extraction, 0.1 g of powder was extracted from teeth pulp cavities; when bones were used, 0.5 g of powder was collected from the internal compact tissue. After DNA treatment and extraction (as described in [21]), purification of the samples was performed with a JetQuick PCR Purification kit (Genomed L ̈hne, Germany) to remove any possible inhibitors that the samples might carry and it was stored at 4 C [22]. For each sample, the mtDNA hypervariable region I (HVRI) was amplified and sequenced, and coding region informative polymorphisms for haplogroup assignment were analysed by PCR-RFLPs. The PCR reactions were carried out in a final volume of 50 m l and Taq polymerase (Bioline H ) was used. Each PCR reaction consisted of an initial denaturation step (5 min at 94 u C) followed by 39 cycles of PCR (50 s at 94 u C, 1 min at annealing temperature depending on the region to be amplified, and 1 min at 72 u C) and a final extension step of 5 min at 72 u C, or of 10 min if the amplified segment was to be cloned. Amplified fragments were then visualized with Ethidium Bromide staining in a 3% agarose gel [23]. To analyse the HVRI, four overlapping fragments were used (Table S1). These were subsequently sequenced and cloned. Sequence reactions were carried out using the sequencing kit BigDye Terminator v.3.1 (Applied Biosystems, Carslbad, USA) according to the manufacturer’s specifications and run in an ABI 3130XL sequencer. For all samples, the fragment containing the majority of HVRI mutations was cloned using the Topo TA Cloning H kit (Invitrogen, Carslbad, USA) following the manufacturer’s instructions. The colonies were harvested and subjected to PCR with M13 universal primers; for each sample 10 inserts of the right size were subsequently sequenced. For coding region analysis 10 coding region segments, determining the 10 Eurasian haplogroups, were analysed by PCR-RFLPs. Restriction sites and the primers used to amplify each specific fragment of the coding region are shown in Table S1. For genetic sex determination, X and Y Amelogenin loci and the SRY gene (sex-determining region Y gene) were analyzed using primers and conditions described respectively by Beraud- Colomb et al. [24] and Santos et al. [25]. Independent replication for four teeth and one bone were performed at the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF) using the methodology previously described by Lalueza-Fox et al. [26]. Moreover, to authenticate the results, the recommended criteria concerning sterility, reproducibility, cloning, characterization of the investigators’ haplotype, coincidence of associated markers and diversity of the results were fulfilled. An integrative approach for human population studies was used, where the flexibility and the intelligent use of authentication criteria was applied [27,28,29]. Sequence raw data was analysed with Sequence Scanner v1.0 (Applied BioSystems) program and sequences were subsequently aligned with BioEdit software version 7.0.0 [30] in relation to the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence [31]. Samples were assigned to haplogroups using the combined information of HVRI and coding region variation following the phylogenetic classifica- tion updated by [32]. Haplogroups were clustered according to their geographic origin following ...
Context 2
... Central Asia has been a crossroad between West and East Eurasian people leading to the current high population genetic admixture and diversity. The origin of this diversity may go back as early as the Iron Age, more than two thousand years ago, with the dispersal of mounted pastoral nomads across the Eurasian steppes [1,2,3]. The present study deals with early contacts between West and East Eurasian populations and specifically those that occurred in the Altai region (Central Asia). Because the Altai Mountains represent a natural boundary between West and East Eurasian steppes, this region is key to understanding demographic events in the steppes of Central Asia. Archaeological work conducted by a Spanish–French–Mongo- lian team in the Mongolian Altai during the period 2005–2007 discovered burial sites belonging to the Pazyryk culture. This was the first time that this culture was found in Mongolia [4,5] Pazyryk is the name given to Iron Age nomadic tribes who inhabited the high steppes of the Altai Mountains between the fifth and third centuries BC. This culture is known from the discoveries of stone tumuli holding frozen bodies of warriors buried with their horses and their weapons [6,7]. Pazyryk culture sites were first described in the Altai region of South Siberia and East Kazakhstan [6,7,8,9,10]. More recently, two different expeditions [5,11] also discovered Pazyryk burials in the Mongolian Altai, indicating that this Iron Age people had also spread into East Asia (Fig. 1). The Pazyryks have traditionally been associated with the Eastern Scythians. Scythians, whose history is well-known from the ancient texts of Herodotus (484–425 BC), was the name that the Greeks gave to a number of separate Indo-European-speaking nomadic groups living in the region encompassing the Pontic- Caspian steppe (in Eastern Europe) and the steppe of Central Asia. The Scythian culture (7th-2nd century BC) flourished in this region from local Indo-European peoples that emerged at the Pontic-Caspian steppe in about 2000BC and expanded eastward until they reached the Altai Mountains. Advances in technology that favoured mounted nomadic pastoralism were the triggers for the expansion of Scythian culture across the Western Eurasian steppe. The end of Scythian period might be related with the westward migrations of nomadic Turkomongolian tribes coming from East Asia since the 3rd century BC, which marked the end of Indo-European domination of the steppe [12,13,14,15]. Archaeological findings, almost entirely provided by burial site discoveries, documented that the Scythians had European morphological features [7,8,12]. However, several recent works focusing on ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of Eastern Scythian burials [9,10,11,16,17,18,19] revealed that this population has a mixed mtDNA composition of West and East Eurasian lineages. This is particularly interesting for the timing of the early contacts between European and Asian people in Altai because all ancient DNA samples analysed so far from Central Asia belonging to a period before the Iron Age bore West Eurasian lineages [18,20]. These molecular data raise two likely hypotheses for the origin of the genetic diversity and admixture among the Iron Age inhabitants of the Altai: 1) people holding west Eurasian lineages arrived at Altai Mountains with the eastward migration of Scythians and, once settled, they began to establish relationships with the neighbouring communities from East Asia holding East Eurasian lineages; 2) this was the result of the admixture between the native people inhabiting either sides of the Altai Mountains (people with West Eurasian lineages in Western Altai and East Eurasian lineages in the Eastern Altai), as a result of a demographic expansion during the Scythian period. Hence, the second hypothesis would provide support to the cultural transmission against the demic diffusion during the Scythian period. The skeletal remains unearthed by our team from Bronze and Iron Age tumuli in the Mongolian Altai offer a unique opportunity to get further insights into the ancient Altaians. Here, we aim to shed light on the origin of the current east-west population admixture in Central Asia, specifically in the Altai region, by analyzing the mitochondrial DNA lineages of these skeletons. Owing to the clear geographical structuring of the East and West Eurasian lineages in Central Asia population, mtDNA is particularly suited for the study of admixture in this region [18]. This study may contribute to providing early evidence of population admixture between European and East Asian people, as well as the underlying causes behind this demographic event in the Eurasian steppes. Skeletal remains from 19 individuals of Bronze and Iron Age [5] were retrieved from four archaeological sites located in Bayan-O ̈ lgiy province (Mongolia, Altai) (Fig. 1, Table 1). For the nineteen exhumed individuals, teeth and bone samples were taken in the field by one of us (XJ) following sterility criteria and were stored in cold conditions. Afterwards, samples were taken to the laboratory dedicated to paleogenetic studies at the Universitat Aut `noma de Barcelona where they were processed. Independent replications were performed at the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF). For DNA extraction, 0.1 g of powder was extracted from teeth pulp cavities; when bones were used, 0.5 g of powder was collected from the internal compact tissue. After DNA treatment and extraction (as described in [21]), purification of the samples was performed with a JetQuick PCR Purification kit (Genomed L ̈hne, Germany) to remove any possible inhibitors that the samples might carry and it was stored at 4 C [22]. For each sample, the mtDNA hypervariable region I (HVRI) was amplified and sequenced, and coding region informative polymorphisms for haplogroup assignment were analysed by PCR-RFLPs. The PCR reactions were carried out in a final volume of 50 m l and Taq polymerase (Bioline H ) was used. Each PCR reaction consisted of an initial denaturation step (5 min at 94 u C) followed by 39 cycles of PCR (50 s at 94 u C, 1 min at annealing temperature depending on the region to be amplified, and 1 min at 72 u C) and a final extension step of 5 min at 72 u C, or of 10 min if the amplified segment was to be cloned. Amplified fragments were then visualized with Ethidium Bromide staining in a 3% agarose gel [23]. To analyse the HVRI, four overlapping fragments were used (Table S1). These were subsequently sequenced and cloned. Sequence reactions were carried out using the sequencing kit BigDye Terminator v.3.1 (Applied Biosystems, Carslbad, USA) according to the manufacturer’s specifications and run in an ABI 3130XL sequencer. For all samples, the fragment containing the majority of HVRI mutations was cloned using the Topo TA Cloning H kit (Invitrogen, Carslbad, USA) following the manufacturer’s instructions. The colonies were harvested and subjected to PCR with M13 universal primers; for each sample 10 inserts of the right size were subsequently sequenced. For coding region analysis 10 coding region segments, determining the 10 Eurasian haplogroups, were analysed by PCR-RFLPs. Restriction sites and the primers used to amplify each specific fragment of the coding region are shown in Table S1. For genetic sex determination, X and Y Amelogenin loci and the SRY gene (sex-determining region Y gene) were analyzed using primers and conditions described respectively by Beraud- Colomb et al. [24] and Santos et al. [25]. Independent replication for four teeth and one bone were performed at the Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF) using the methodology previously described by Lalueza-Fox et al. [26]. Moreover, to authenticate the results, the recommended criteria concerning sterility, reproducibility, cloning, characterization of the investigators’ haplotype, coincidence of associated markers and diversity of the results were fulfilled. An integrative approach for human population studies was used, where the flexibility and the intelligent use of authentication criteria was applied [27,28,29]. Sequence raw data was analysed with Sequence Scanner v1.0 (Applied BioSystems) program and sequences were subsequently aligned with BioEdit software version 7.0.0 [30] in relation to the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence [31]. Samples were assigned to haplogroups using the combined information of HVRI and coding region variation following the phylogenetic classifica- tion updated by [32]. Haplogroups were clustered according to their geographic origin following ...

Similar publications

Article
Full-text available
We present the results of a paleogenetic analysis of nine individuals from two Early Iron Age mounds in the Baraba forest-steppe, associated with the Sargat culture (fi ve from Pogorelka-2, mound 8, and four from Vengerovo-6, mound 1). Four sys tems of genetic markers were analyzed: mitochondrial DNA, the polymorphic part of the amelo genin gene, th...

Citations

... However, in a similar period of time, an analogous cultural model began to characterize the nomads identified with Turkic or Mongolian speakers, who entered the pages of history in the last centuries BC, like Xioungnu. A strict ethnic attribution of Asian nomadic peoples of those times is hence problematic (Hanks 2010;Nichols 2011), as is further demonstrated by genetic studies (González-Ruiz et al. 2012;Tikhonov et al. 2019). ...
Article
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/C3KJZ9MVQKCM9GQIIID2/full?target=10.1080/2159032X.2023.2299651
... Eastern Kazakhstan occupies a large area (401.8 thousand km 2 ) in the east of the country and is a border area with China and Russia. Along the border stretches the Altai mountain range, where the steppes on both sides are a historical corridor of bilateral latitudinal migrations and the mixing of Asians and Europeans (Gonz alez- Ruiz et al. 2012). Recent studies of the ancient population of this region, the Scythians, demonstrate their high genetic diversity (Gnecchi-Ruscone et al. 2021). ...
Article
Full-text available
Background The establishment of a national haplotype database is important for forensic and genetic applications and requires studying genetic polymorphisms at Y-STR sites. However, the genetic structure of the Eastern Kazakhstan population is poorly characterised. Aim To investigate the genetic polymorphisms of 27 Y-STR loci in the Kazakh population from Eastern Kazakhstan and analyse the population genetic relationships of the Eastern Kazakhs with other populations. Subjects and methods The Yfiler Plus kit was utilised to genotype 246 healthy, unrelated males from Eastern Kazakhstan. Based on the raw data, haplotype and allele frequencies along with forensic parameters were calculated, and an MDS plot was constructed. Results A total of 207 haplotypes were detected, of which 186 were unique. The haplotype diversity and discrimination capacity were 0.997 and 0.841, respectively. Population comparisons showed that Eastern Kazakhs have close genetic relationships with Kazakhs from Xinjiang, China. At the same time, a difference was found between the studied population and the previous one in the same part of Kazakhstan. Conclusions The obtained haplotypes will help to expand the Kazakhstan Y-chromosome reference database and will be useful for future genetic research and forensic applications.
... Amma bunun özü dəә bizəә dəәqiq söyləәməәyəә imkan vermir ki, bu, birinci şəәrqəә doğru vəә ikinci qəәrbəә doğru miqrasiyanınmı nəәticəәsidir, yoxsa, Avropa iləә Şəәrqi Asiya əәhalisinin demoqrafik genişləәnməә nəәticəәsindəә təәmas zonasında qarışması nəәticəәsindəә ortaya çıxmışdır. Görünəәn odur ki, Monqolustan Altayının dəәmir dövrü əәhalisi eyni dövrün Qəәrbi Altaylıları (Altayın Rusiya vəә Qazaxıstan hissəәsi) iləә eyni genetik fonda malik olmuşlar vəә Pazırık məәdəәniyyəәti daşıyıcıları müasir Altaylılarla eyni genefond daşımaqdadırlar (324). ...
Book
Full-text available
Qlpçaqların Azərbaycan xalqının etnogenezində yeri. Bakı, 2015
... Evidence deriving from the mtDNA haplogroups shared between Afanasievo and Yamnaya people supports an eastward migration from the Pontic-Caspian steppes (Allentoft et al., 2015;Narasimhan et al., 2019). The presence of a U5a1 mitochondrial haplotype in an Eneolithic grave, dated at ca. 3000 BCE and associated with the Afanasievo archaeological culture in the Khangai Mountains, attested the presence of people with "western" origin in the east of the Altai Mountains before the Bronze Age (Rogers et al., 2020), in contrast to what was previously proposed (Ricaut et al., 2004a;Ricaut et al., 2004b;Lalueza-Fox et al., 2004;Chikisheva et al., 2007;Keyser et al., 2009;González-Ruiz et al., 2012;Wang C. C. et al., 2021). To further investigate the impact and legacy of mitochondrial lineages with eastern and western origins on the gene pool of modern Mongolian populations, we analyzed the mtDNA profiles of 2,420 individuals with a last known terminal maternal ancestor (TMA) from one of the 20 different Mongolian provinces. ...
Article
Full-text available
Mongolia is located in a strategic position at the eastern edge of the Eurasian Steppe. Nomadic populations moved across this wide area for millennia before developing more sedentary communities, extended empires, and complex trading networks, which connected western Eurasia and eastern Asia until the late Medieval period. We provided a fine-grained portrait of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation observed in present-day Mongolians and capable of revealing gene flows and other demographic processes that took place in Inner Asia, as well as in western Eurasia. The analyses of a novel dataset (N = 2,420) of mtDNAs highlighted a clear matrilineal differentiation within the country due to a mixture of haplotypes with eastern Asian (EAs) and western Eurasian (WEu) origins, which were differentially lost and preserved. In a wider genetic context, the prevalent EAs contribution, larger in eastern and central Mongolian regions, revealed continuous connections with neighboring Asian populations until recent times, as attested by the geographically restricted haplotype-sharing likely facilitated by the Genghis Khan’s so-called Pax Mongolica. The genetic history beyond the WEu haplogroups, notably detectable on both sides of Mongolia, was more difficult to explain. For this reason, we moved to the analysis of entire mitogenomes (N = 147). Although it was not completely possible to identify specific lineages that evolved in situ, two major changes in the effective (female) population size were reconstructed. The more recent one, which began during the late Pleistocene glacial period and became steeper in the early Holocene, was probably the outcome of demographic events connected to western Eurasia. The Neolithic growth could be easily explained by the diffusion of dairy pastoralism, as already proposed, while the late glacial increase indicates, for the first time, a genetic connection with western Eurasian refuges, as supported by the unusual high frequency and internal sub-structure in Mongolia of haplogroup H1, a well-known post-glacial marker in Europe. Bronze Age events, without a significant demographic impact, might explain the age of some mtDNA haplogroups. Finally, a diachronic comparison with available ancient mtDNAs made it possible to link six mitochondrial lineages of present-day Mongolians to the timeframe and geographic path of the Silk Route.
... During the Iron Age, the Scythian expansion took place along with migrations from nomad warrior cultures from the Xiongnu empire from the east and the Persian kingdoms from the south. This was followed by additional population movements after the collapse of the Mongol empire [5,[8][9][10]. However, recent population movements, spanning the last centuries, have not been systematically addressed in these studies. ...
Article
Full-text available
The Asian Central Steppe, consisting of current-day Kazakhstan and Russia, has acted as a highway for major migrations throughout history. Therefore, describing the genetic composition of past populations in Central Asia holds value to understanding human mobility in this pivotal region. In this study, we analyse paleogenomic data generated from five humans from Kuygenzhar, Kazakhstan. These individuals date to the early to mid-18th century, shortly after the Kazakh Khanate was founded, a union of nomadic tribes of Mongol Golden Horde and Turkic origins. Genomic analysis identifies that these individuals are admixed with varying proportions of East Asian ancestry, indicating a recent admixture event from East Asia. The high amounts of DNA from the anaerobic Gram-negative bacteria Tannerella forsythia, a periodontal pathogen, recovered from their teeth suggest they may have suffered from periodontitis disease. Genomic analysis of this bacterium identified recently evolved virulence and glycosylation genes including the presence of antibiotic resistance genes predating the antibiotic era. This study provides an integrated analysis of individuals with a diet mostly based on meat (mainly horse and lamb), milk, and dairy products and their oral microbiome.
... Shortly thereafter, Maria Gimbutas proposed an opposing theory known as the Kurgan hypothesis, or the Steppe theory, which identified the Russian steppes as the Indo-European urheimat (Gimbutas 1993). Another study proposed that the early movements of admixed populations across the European steppe to the Altai mountain region involved speakers of the Indo-European languages (Gonzalez-Ruiz et al. 2012). ...
Article
Full-text available
The ancient geographical origins of Brahmins-a prominent ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent-have remained controversial for a long time. This study employed the AMOVA (analysis of molecular variance) test to evaluate genetic affinities of this group with thirty populations of Central Asia and Europe. A domestic comparison was performed with fifty non-Brahmin groups in India. The results showed that Brahmins had genetic affinities with several foreign populations and also shared their genetic heritage with several domestic non-Brahmin groups. The study identified the deep ancient origins of Brahmins by tracing their Y-chromosome haplogroups and genetic markers on the Y-DNA phylogenetic tree. It was confirmed that the progenitors of this group emerged from at least 12 different geographic regions of the world. The study concluded that about 83% of the Brahmins in the dataset belonged to four major haplogroups, of which two emerged from Central Asia, one from the Fertile Crescent, and one was of an indigenous Indian origin.
... These radiocarbon dates were measured at the Poznan Radiocarbon Laboratory, Poland, in 2017, using an accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS). The age-depth-model Table 1 A brief overview of the settlement history in western Mongolia (Fernández-Giménez, 1999;Fernández-Giménez et al., 2017;González-Ruiz et al., 2012;Khishigjargal et al., 2013;Lkhagvadorj et al., 2013;Tumen, 2006;Van Geel et al., 2004). ...
Article
The ‘Altai Tavan Bogd’ National Park, located between 2000 m and 4000 m a.s.l. in the north-western part of the Mongolian Altai, is a forest-steppe ecosystem in Central Asia which is noticeable because of its extreme continental and high-altitude conditions. Its vegetation is very sensitive to environmental changes and impact by nomadic people. To reconstruct the dynamics of this forest-steppe ecosystem, a broad approach was taken employing multi-proxy analyses including the analysis of pollen, spores, non-pollen palynomorphs, charcoal and diatoms, as well as XRF scanning of a lacustrine sediment core of a small and shallow lake located south of Dayan Nuur. Five radiocarbon dates indicate a record spanning the last 4375 years. Between 4310 and 1040 cal yr BP, the vegetation was characterized by a mixture of alpine meadow and moist true steppe communities as well as forested areas with Larix sibirica, Pinus sibirica and Picea obovata stands. Starting around 2350 cal yr BP, a substantially greater and/or denser forest occurrence can be inferred. A marked forest decline after 1040 cal yr BP and the loss of Pinus sibirica and Picea obovata near the study area proceeded in accordance with a significantly higher abundance of large herbivores and a strong indication of nomadic people in the area as inferred from coprophilous fungi. One period of markedly increased fire activity is found from 640 to 550 cal yr BP. For the latest Holocene period, the records of non-pollen palynomorphs and diatoms suggest a rise of the lake water level. These contrasting trends of forest decline despite higher water availability may reflect the considerable human impact of the nomadic population and their cattle on the ecosystem in the ‘Altai Tavan Bogd’ National Park and Central Asia in general.
... Each ancient Scythian group was also found to bear closer genetic connections with the contemporary populations from the same region, hence indicating substantial population continuity across more than two millennia. For instance, the ancient Pazyryk people were found to share a similar mtDNA gene pool with not only the contemporary Altaians and nearby populations but also with the pre-Iron Age populations from the same region (Gonzalez-Ruiz et al. 2012). ...
... In other words, there is an apparent population continuity from the Scythians to the Xiongnu and then onto the Turkic people, possibly because the former two already bore proto-Turkic elements. Following the collapse of the Pazyryk culture, not all members of the community disappeared, but some seemingly formed the basis of a genetic continuity with the contemporary Altaians and other nearby populations in terms of both the paternal and maternal lineages (Dulik et al. 2012;Gonzalez-Ruiz et al. 2012). ...
... Traces of the Scythian influence among other Turkic people, such as those as far as from northeastern Siberia, namely Yakuts or Sakhas, were also previously proposed, but these proposals remain contested (Gogolev 1993;Savinov 2010). Recent archaeogenetic data seem to support a connection between the contemporary Yakuts and ancient Scythians, especially in terms of the Pazyryk culture, because the current model suggests that a demographic expan-sion of the autochthonous Altaians is more likely to account for the genetic admixture and diversity in Central Asia (Voivod et al. 2003;Gonzalez-Ruiz et al. 2012). Population genetics studies on contemporary Sakhas suggested that they have (a) rather heterogeneous maternal lineages, featuring close affinities with both the autochthonous Northeastern Siberian populations, such as Evenks, who were traditionally Tungusic-speaking reindeer-herders and hunter-gatherers and Southern Siberian Turkic-speaking Tuvans, who had a traditional economy based on semi-nomadic horse and cattle breeding (Pakendorf et al. 2003;Puzyrev et al. 2003), and (b) very homogenous paternal lineages, both geographically and chronologically, possibly due to a population bottleneck or founder effect, with an affinity to those from the Lake Baikal area (Pakendorf et al. 2006;Crubezy et al. 2010). ...
Article
Full-text available
In this study, geographic and linguistic distributions of contemporary and ancient matches with the paternal and maternal lineages of two individuals exhumed from the exemplary Pazyryk culture burial site of Ak-Alakha-1 mound 1 were investigated. Using the shared paternal and maternal haplotypes observed in both ancient individuals, extensive database and literature searches were conducted revealing numerous full matches among contemporary Eurasians, majority of whom speak Altaic Languages. Despite the current focus on the two Pazyryk individuals, a rare glimpse into the ancient migrations was gained through the discovery of paternal and maternal haplotype matches across an immense geography that spans from Yakutia to Turkey. In addition to a vast array of archaeological findings in such Scythian “frozen graves” across Central Asia, accumulating archaeogenetic data are expected to shed light on the anthropology of these otherwise mysterious people.
... These radiocarbon dates were measured at the Poznan Radiocarbon Laboratory, Poland, in 2017, using an accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS). The age-depth-model Table 1 A brief overview of the settlement history in western Mongolia (Fernández-Giménez, 1999;Fernández-Giménez et al., 2017;González-Ruiz et al., 2012;Khishigjargal et al., 2013;Lkhagvadorj et al., 2013;Tumen, 2006;Van Geel et al., 2004). ...
... Both anthropological [61] and genetic data [47,62] indicate that until the Bronze Age Asia was populated mainly by Europid Sintashta-Andronovo people west of the Altai, while populations with Mongoloid traits and genes were confined east of the Altai. The first eastern Hg lineages appeared in West Siberia at the beginning of Bronze Age [63], in the Altai at the Middle Bronze Age [64], while in Central Asia just around the 6 th century BC corresponding to the Xiongnu invasions [65]. ...
Article
Full-text available
It has been widely accepted that the Finno-Ugric Hungarian language, originated from proto Uralic people, was brought into the Carpathian Basin by the conquering Hungarians. From the middle of the 19th century this view prevailed against the deep-rooted Hungarian Hun tradition, maintained in folk memory as well as in Hungarian and foreign written medieval sources, which claimed that Hungarians were kinsfolk of the Huns. In order to shed light on the genetic origin of the Conquerors we sequenced 102 mitogenomes from early Conqueror cemeteries and compared them to sequences of all available databases. We applied novel population genetic algorithms, named Shared Haplogroup Distance and MITOMIX, to reveal past admixture of maternal lineages. Our results show that the Conquerors assembled from various nomadic groups of the Eurasian steppe. Population genetic results indicate that they had closest connection to the Onogur-Bulgar ancestors of Volga Tatars. Phylogenetic results reveal that more than one third of the Conqueror maternal lineages were derived from Central-Inner Asia and their most probable ultimate sources were the Asian Scythians and Asian Huns, giving support to the Hungarian Hun tradition. The rest of the lineages most likely originated from the Bronze Age Potapovka-Poltavka-Srubnaya cultures of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Available data imply that the Conquerors did not have a major contribution to the gene pool of the Carpathian Basin.