2,000-year-old R1a1 west Eurasian dug up in Mongolia

[Polako]

Nothing really shocking, since a Scythian with R1a1 and European-like skull has already been found nearby (dated to 500BC), but interesting nonetheless. It seems like Scythians joined the ranks of the Xiongnu, and even became part of their ruling class.

Kijeong Kim et al., A western Eurasian male is found in 2000-year-old elite Xiongnu cemetery in Northeast Mongolia (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123246661/abstract), American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Published Online: 20 Jan 2010, doi: 10.1002/ajpa.21242


Abstract: We analyzed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), Y-chromosome single nucleotide polymorphisms (Y-SNP), and autosomal short tandem repeats (STR) of three skeletons found in a 2,000-year-old Xiongnu elite cemetery in Duurlig Nars of Northeast Mongolia. This study is one of the first reports of the detailed genetic analysis of ancient human remains using the three types of genetic markers. The DNA analyses revealed that one subject was an ancient male skeleton with maternal U2e1 and paternal R1a1 haplogroups. This is the first genetic evidence that a male of distinctive Indo-European lineages (R1a1) was present in the Xiongnu of Mongolia. This might indicate an Indo-European migration into Northeast Asia 2,000 years ago. Other specimens are a female with mtDNA haplogroup D4 and a male with Y-SNP haplogroup C3 and mtDNA haplogroup D4. Those haplogroups are common in Northeast Asia. There was no close kinship among them. The genetic evidence of U2e1 and R1a1 may help to clarify the migration patterns of Indo-Europeans and ancient East-West contacts of the Xiongnu Empire. Artifacts in the tombs suggested that the Xiongnu had a system of the social stratification. The West Eurasian male might show the racial tolerance of the Xiongnu Empire and some insight into the Xiongnu society.


U2e is present in West Eurasia at 1% on average (Richard et al., 2007). The ancestral mtDNA haplogroup U2 is subdivided into U2e and U2i; U2e is known as a characteristic European haplogroup, and U2i as an indigenous haplogroup in India (Kivisild et al., 1999; Bermisheva et al., 2002; Basu et al., 2003; Quintana-Murci et al., 2004; Maji et al., 2008; Malyarchuk et al., 2008). U2e is also found in India but exclusively in caste populations, especially in the upper caste with a high frequency (Table 7) (Basu et al., 2003; Maji et al., 2008).

...

The Xiongnu was once dominant in West China including the Silk Road and close to the territory of Scythians, known as Indo-European, and also dominated the southern portion of Central Siberia. It is also possible that the MNX3 West Eurasian male might be the Scythian from West Siberia or Kurgan people from Siberia northwest to the Lake Baikal.

...

We showed for the first time that an Indo-European with paternal R1a1 and maternal U2e1 was present in the Xiongnu Empire of ancient Mongolia. Furthermore, the autosomal STR analysis of the sample also supported the non-East Asian origin of this individual, and he was closer to the modern Indian high caste than to other modern populations, but not greatly so. Another possibility for his origin is the Transbaikal region and the Scythian territory.

[Polako]

And here's some film footage of this guy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V30tyaXv6EI

[Psychonaut]

Does the study list the DYS markers? I can only get to the abstract...

[The Khagan]

Scythians or some other Northern Iranic group were thought to make up a significant portion of the Xiongnu according to some theories. West Eurasian phenotype were relatively common back then that far east. Perhaps he was a Tocharian? They inhabited the Tarim basin and had light eyes and ruddy complexion. Some of their genetics were absorbed by the Turkic groups that inhabit the region to day, in specific the Uyghurs.

[Polako]

Does the study list the DYS markers? I can only get to the abstract...

As far as I can tell, they only tested Y-SNPs. The DYS values in the main article are for the autosomal STR markers. And I can't see any Y-STRs being listed here...

Supporting Information (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123246661/suppinfo)

[Osweo]

A Dingling, as the Chinese called them. There's another article here:
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=25979

Site Name: Duurlig Nars
Type: Burial Chamber (Dolmen)

Latitude: 47.798400N Longitude: 111.643070E

Skeleton of Western man found in ancient Mongolian tomb. Excavations several years ago at an ancient cemetery in Mongolia uncovered a man's skeleton, including this skull, that has yielded genetic evidence of Indo-Europeans reaching eastern Asia at least 2,000 years ago.

Dead men can indeed tell tales, but they speak in a whispered double helix.

Consider an older gentleman whose skeleton lay in one of more than 200 tombs recently excavated at a 2,000-year-old cemetery in western Mongolia, near China’s northern border. DNA extracted from this man’s bones pegs him as a descendant of Europeans or western Asians. Yet he still assumed a prominent position in ancient Mongolia’s Xiongnu Empire, say geneticist Kyung-Yong Kim of Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea, and his colleagues.

On the basis of previous excavations and descriptions in ancient Chinese texts, researchers suspect that the Xiongnu Empire — which ruled a vast territory in and around Mongolia from 209 B.C. to A.D. 93 — included ethnically and linguistically diverse nomadic tribes. The Xiongnu Empire once ruled the major trading route known as the Asian Silk Road, opening it to both Western and Chinese influences.

Researchers have yet to pin down the language spoken by Xiongnu rulers and political elites, says archaeologist David Anthony of Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y. But the new genetic evidence shows that the 2,000-year-old man “was multi-ethnic, like the Xiongnu polity itself,” Anthony remarks.

This long-dead individual possessed a set of genetic mutations on his Y chromosome, which is inherited from paternal ancestors, that commonly appears today among male speakers of Indo-European languages in eastern Europe, central Asia and northern India, Kim’s team reports in an upcoming American Journal of Physical Anthropology. The same man displayed a pattern of mitochondrial DNA mutations, inherited from maternal ancestors, characteristic of speakers of modern Indo-European languages in central Asia, the researchers say.

“We don’t know if this 60- to 70-year-old man reached Mongolia on his own or if his family had already lived there for many generations,” says study coauthor Charles Brenner, a DNA analyst based in Oakland, Calif.

Two other skeletons from the Xiongnu cemetery in Duurlig Nars show genetic links to people who live in northeastern Asia, according to Kim’s team. Other team members include Kijeong Kim of Chung-Ang University and Eregzen Gelegdorj of the National Museum of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar.

The Duurlig Nars man’s genetic signature supports the idea that Indo-European migrations to northeastern Asia started before 2,000 years ago. This notion is plausible, but not confirmed, says geneticist Peter Underhill of Stanford University. Further investigations of Y chromosome mutation frequencies in modern populations will allow for a more precise tracing of the Duurlig Nars man’s geographic roots, Underhill predicts.

Scholars have long sought to trace the origin and spread of related languages now found in Europe, India and other parts of Asia. One hypothesis holds that Indo-European languages proliferated via several waves of expansion and conquest by nomads known as Kurgans who had domesticated horses and thus could travel long distances. In this scenario, Kurgans left a homeland north of the Black Sea, in what’s now Russia, around 6,400 years ago.

Another view holds that farmers from ancient Turkey spread Indo-European tongues as they swallowed up one parcel of land after another, beginning around 9,000 years ago.

Since 1978, discoveries of 2,400- to 4,000-year-old mummified corpses with European features in northwestern China, not far from Mongolia, have fueled the Kurgan hypothesis (SN: 2/25/95, p. 120). Remains of large wheels found with these blond-haired individuals raise the controversial possibility that these foreigners introduced carts and chariots to the Chinese.

Add to those discoveries a report in the September 2009 Human Genetics. Geneticist Christine Keyser of the University of Strasbourg in France and her colleagues found that nine of 26 skeletons previously excavated at 11 Kurgan sites in northeastern Russia possess a Y chromosome mutation pattern thought to mark the eastward expansion of early Indo-Europeans. That same genetic signature characterizes the Duurlig Nars man.

By 2,000 years ago, the easternmost Indo-European languages were probably spoken in northwestern China, Anthony holds. So an Indo-European speaker could have aligned himself with Xiongnu political big shots and earned an eternal resting place in an elite Xiongnu cemetery, in his opinion.

Kim agrees. The Duurlig Nars man’s tomb lies close to the tomb of an especially high-ranking Xiongnu man whom he may have served in some way, he suggests.

Kim’s group plans to extract and study DNA from additional Duurlig Nars skeletons. For now, Anthony remarks, “this new study from Mongolia is important because it adds one more point of light to a largely dark prehistoric sky.”

Source: Science News
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/55811/title/Skeleton_of_Western_man_found_in_ancient_Mongolian _tomb
and the original paper can be read here.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25822768/Full-Text