Abstract
Seventeen years of archaeological and anthropological expeditions in North-Eastern Siberia (in the Sakha Republic, Yakutia) have permitted the genetic analysis of 150 ancient (15th-19th century) and 510 modern individuals. Almost all males were successfully analysed (Y-STR) and this allowed us to identify paternal lineages and their geographical expansion through time. This genetic data was confronted with mythological, historical and material evidence to establish the sequence of events that built the modern Yakut genetic diversity. We show that the ancient Yakuts recovered from this large collection of graves are not representative of an ancient population. Uncommonly, we were also able to demonstrate that the funerary preference observed here involved three specific male lineages, especially in the 18th century. Moreover, this dominance was likely caused by the Russian conquest of Siberia which allowed some male clans to rise to new levels of power. Finally, we give indications that some mythical and historical figures might have been the actors of those genetic changes. These results help us reconsider the genetic dynamics of colonization in some regions, question the distinction between fact and myth in national histories and provide a rare insight into a funerary ensemble by revealing the biased process of its composition.
Highlights
IntroductionSeventeen years of archaeological and anthropological expeditions in North-Eastern Siberia (in the Sakha Republic, Yakutia) have permitted the genetic analysis of 150 ancient (15th-19th century) and 510 modern individuals
Seventeen years of archaeological and anthropological expeditions in North-Eastern Siberia have permitted the genetic analysis of 150 ancient (15th-19th century) and 510 modern individuals
Archaeological excavations in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in North-Eastern Siberia have recovered the remains of 78 men, 51 of which were subjected to genetic analyses in previous studies focused on biogeographic origins[3] or kinship between graves[4,5,6] using autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) and mitochondrial (HV1) data
Summary
Seventeen years of archaeological and anthropological expeditions in North-Eastern Siberia (in the Sakha Republic, Yakutia) have permitted the genetic analysis of 150 ancient (15th-19th century) and 510 modern individuals. Anthropological expeditions in Yakutia collected biological samples for more than 200 men, some subjected to genetic analyses (Y-STR typing) aimed at identifying relationships between the Yakuts and other Siberian populations[10] These published data (189 modern and 51 ancient males), along with newly collected and excavated material (77 modern and 23 ancient males), have allowed us to focus on the Y-chromosome lineages identified in the ancient and the modern data and propose a combined study of paleogenetic, historical and archaeological data, confronting different approaches in order to shed light on the evolution of cultural practices and social structure in the Yakut population during the last five centuries. Previous studies of archaeological material[5,7] have shown that genetic diversity in the archaeological population was low and that there were few differences in the nature of Y-chromosome lineages between ancient and modern individuals
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