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Ancestry and demography and descendants of Iron Age nomads of the Eurasian Steppe
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Ancestry and demography and descendants of Iron Age nomads of the Eurasian Steppe

Martina Unterländer, Friso Palstra, Iosif Lazaridis, Aleksandr Pilipenko, Zuzana Hofmanová, Melanie Groß, Christian Sell, Jens Blöcher, Karola Kirsanow, Nadin Rohland, …
Nature communications, v 8(1), pp 14615-14615
03 Mar 2017
PMID: 28256537
url
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14615View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Asian Continental Ancestry Group - genetics Datasets as Topic DNA, Mitochondrial - genetics European Continental Ancestry Group - genetics Gene Flow Genetic Variation - genetics Grassland History, Ancient Human Migration - history Humans Kazakhstan Male Models, Statistical Russia Transients and Migrants - history
During the 1 millennium before the Common Era (BCE), nomadic tribes associated with the Iron Age Scythian culture spread over the Eurasian Steppe, covering a territory of more than 3,500 km in breadth. To understand the demographic processes behind the spread of the Scythian culture, we analysed genomic data from eight individuals and a mitochondrial dataset of 96 individuals originating in eastern and western parts of the Eurasian Steppe. Genomic inference reveals that Scythians in the east and the west of the steppe zone can best be described as a mixture of Yamnaya-related ancestry and an East Asian component. Demographic modelling suggests independent origins for eastern and western groups with ongoing gene-flow between them, plausibly explaining the striking uniformity of their material culture. We also find evidence that significant gene-flow from east to west Eurasia must have occurred early during the Iron Age.

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Genetics & Heredity
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