Abstract
The Turkic peoples represent a diverse collection of ethnic groups defined by the Turkic languages. These groups have dispersed across a vast area, including Siberia, Northwest China, Central Asia, East Europe, the Caucasus, Anatolia, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. The origin and early dispersal history of the Turkic peoples is disputed, with candidates for their ancient homeland ranging from the Transcaspian steppe to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. Previous genetic studies have not identified a clear-cut unifying genetic signal for the Turkic peoples, which lends support for language replacement rather than demic diffusion as the model for the Turkic language’s expansion. We addressed the genetic origin of 373 individuals from 22 Turkic-speaking populations, representing their current geographic range, by analyzing genome-wide high-density genotype data. In agreement with the elite dominance model of language expansion most of the Turkic peoples studied genetically resemble their geographic neighbors. However, western Turkic peoples sampled across West Eurasia shared an excess of long chromosomal tracts that are identical by descent (IBD) with populations from present-day South Siberia and Mongolia (SSM), an area where historians center a series of early Turkic and non-Turkic steppe polities. While SSM matching IBD tracts (> 1cM) are also observed in non-Turkic populations, Turkic peoples demonstrate a higher percentage of such tracts (p-values ≤ 0.01) compared to their non-Turkic neighbors. Finally, we used the ALDER method and inferred admixture dates (~9th–17th centuries) that overlap with the Turkic migrations of the 5th–16th centuries. Thus, our results indicate historical admixture among Turkic peoples, and the recent shared ancestry with modern populations in SSM supports one of the hypothesized homelands for their nomadic Turkic and related Mongolic ancestors.
Highlights
Linguistic relatedness is frequently used to inform genetic studies [1] and here we take this path to reconstruct aspects of a major and relatively recent demographic event, the expansion of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples, who reshaped much of the West Eurasian ethno-linguistic landscape in the last two millennia
Centuries of nomadic migrations have resulted in the distribution of Turkic languages over a large area ranging from Siberia, across Central Asia to Eastern Europe and the Middle East
We show that Turkic-speaking peoples sampled across the Middle East, Caucasus, East Europe, and Central Asia share varying proportions of Asian ancestry that originate in a single area, southern Siberia and Mongolia
Summary
Linguistic relatedness is frequently used to inform genetic studies [1] and here we take this path to reconstruct aspects of a major and relatively recent demographic event, the expansion of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples, who reshaped much of the West Eurasian ethno-linguistic landscape in the last two millennia. The earliest Turkic ruled polities (between the 6th and 9th centuries) were centered in what is Mongolia, northern China, and southern Siberia This region has been put forward as the point of origin for the dispersal of Turkic-speaking pastoral nomads [3, 4]. The same approximate area was earlier dominated by the Xiongnu Empire (Hsiung-nu) (200 BCE–100 CE) and later by the short-lived Xianbei (Hsien-pi) Confederation (100–200 CE) and Rouran State (aka Juan-juan or Asian Avar) (400–500 CE) These steppe polities were likely established by non-Turkic-speaking peoples and presumably united ethnically diverse tribes. The early stages of Turkic dispersal remain poorly understood and our knowledge about their ancient habitat remains a working hypothesis
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