Abstract
ABSTRACTSince prehistoric times, South Central Asia has been at the crossroads of the movement of people, culture, and goods. Today, the Central Asia’s populations are divided into two cultural and linguistic groups: the Indo-Iranian and the Turko-Mongolian groups. Previous genetic studies unveiled that migrations from East Asia contributed to the spread of Turko-Mongolian populations in Central Asia and the partial replacement of the Indo-Iranian population. However, little is known about the origin of the latter. To shed light on this, we compare the genetic data on two current-day populations– Yaghnobis and Tajiks – with genome-wide data from published ancient individuals. The present Indo-Iranian populations from Central Asia display a strong genetic continuity with Iron Age samples from Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. We model Yaghnobis as a mixture of 93% Iron Age individual from Turkmenistan and 7% from Baikal. For the Tajiks, we observe a higher Baikal ancestry and an additional admixture event with a South Asian population. Our results, therefore, suggest that in addition to a complex history, Central Asia shows a remarkable genetic continuity since the Iron Age, with only limited gene flow.
Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Reference72 articles.
1. The Eurasian Heartland: A continental perspective on Y-chromosome diversity
2. In the heartland of Eurasia: the multilocus genetic landscape of Central Asian populations
3. Origins of Agriculture in Western Central Asia. An Environmental-Archaeological Study. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology;Paléorient,2013
4. Luneau, E. L’âge du bronze final en Asie centrale méridionale (1750-1500/1450 avant notre ère: la fin de la civilisation de l’Oxus). (UNIVERSITÉ PARIS 1 - PANTHÉON-SORBONNE, 2010).
5. Transitions socioculturelles lors de la fin de la civilisation de l’Oxus