A Genetic Study on Turkic peoples

[Chev Chelios]

The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Turkic-Speaking Nomads across Eurasia
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetic...l.pgen.1005068

Geographic map of samples included in this study and linguistic tree of Turkic languages. Panel A) Non-Turkic-speaking populations are shown with light blue, light green, dark green, light brown, and yellow circles, depending on the region. Turkic-speaking populations are shown with red circles regardless of the region of sampling. Full population names are given in S1 Table Panel B) The linguistic tree of Turkic languages is adapted from Dybo 2004 and includes only those languages spoken by the Turkic peoples analyzed in this study. The x-axis shows the time scale in kilo-years (kya). Internal branches are shown with different colors.


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.

Author Summary
Centuries of nomadic migrations have ultimately resulted in the distribution of Turkic languages over a large area ranging from Siberia, across Central Asia to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Despite the profound cultural impact left by these nomadic peoples, little is known about their prehistoric origins. Moreover, because contemporary Turkic speakers tend to genetically resemble their geographic neighbors, it is not clear whether their nomadic ancestors left an identifiable genetic trace. In this study, 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. Mongolic- and Turkic-speaking populations from this area bear an unusually high number of long chromosomal tracts that are identical by descent with Turkic peoples from across west Eurasia. Admixture induced linkage disequilibrium decay across chromosomes in these populations indicates that admixture occurred during the 9th–17th centuries, in agreement with the historically recorded Turkic nomadic migrations and later Mongol expansion. Thus, our findings reveal genetic traces of recent large-scale nomadic migrations and map their source to a previously hypothesized area of Mongolia and southern Siberia.

Discussion
Our ADMIXTURE analysis revealed that Turkic-speaking populations scattered across Eurasia tend to share most of their genetic ancestry with their current geographic non-Turkic neighbors. This is particularly obvious for Turkic peoples in Anatolia, Iran, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, but more difficult to determine for northeastern Siberian Turkic speakers, Yakuts and Dolgans, for which non-Turkic reference populations are absent. We also found that a higher proportion of Asian genetic components distinguishes the Turkic speakers all over West Eurasia from their immediate non-Turkic neighbors. These results support the model that expansion of the Turkic language family outside its presumed East Eurasian core area occurred primarily through language replacement, perhaps by the elite dominance scenario, that is, intrusive Turkic nomads imposed their language on indigenous peoples due to advantages in military and/or social organization.

[safrax]

thanks!

SSM = South Siberian / Mongolian DNA, ie. non-western, non european. Real turks are east asian!

[itilvolga]

Actually it depends on Turkic tribes. If you try to go to first Turks, then, you should do same to Europeans, their first homelands are not Europe as well so they are not European for that study's logic

Turks are mainly Central Asian but Oghuz Turks have minor Caucasian blood

[Luca]

Actually it depends on Turkic tribes. If you try to go to first Turks, then, you should do same to Europeans, their first homelands are not Europe as well so they are not European for that study's logic

Salak; Did you even read the entire text of what the study said?

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.

Turks are mainly Central Asian but Oghuz Turks have minor Caucasian blood

We also found that a higher proportion of Asian genetic components distinguishes the Turkic speakers all over West Eurasia from their immediate non-Turkic neighbors.

And according to that study you oghuuz turks don't have "minor Caucasian blood" admixture, instead you are pirmarily caucasian with just slight asian tendencies.
According to that study, your "expansion of the Turkic language family outside its presumed East Eurasian core area occurred primarily through language replacement, perhaps by the elite dominance scenario, that is, intrusive Turkic nomads imposed their language on indigenous peoples due to advantages in military and/or social organization". Meaning that especially western turks are descendants of some turkish nomads but a lot more caucasians. It's only that the turkish blood is way more dominant/the ruling elite (turks) never let another culture take over.

[itilvolga]

Salak; Did you even read the entire text of what the study said?


And according to that study you oghuuz turks don't have "minor Caucasian blood" admixture, instead you are pirmarily caucasian with just slight asian tendencies.
According to that study, your "expansion of the Turkic language family outside its presumed East Eurasian core area occurred primarily through language replacement, perhaps by the elite dominance scenario, that is, intrusive Turkic nomads imposed their language on indigenous peoples due to advantages in military and/or social organization". Meaning that especially western turks are descendants of some turkish nomads but a lot more caucasians. It's only that the turkish blood is way more dominant/the ruling elite (turks) never let another culture take over.

Yeh i didn't read all of them as usual xd meh anyway i know the mainly purpose of that kind of texts, Turks are still Turks, we are like belong to nowhere: we are not European, Asian or African, we are like just Turks meh but that's right, today, Oghuz Turks especially Western Turkish people (Especially Aegean and Thracian Turks) are mostly Caucasian for sure, i mean, almost Europeans (except some cities like Aydın, they have dominantly Yörük population and it gives them many Asian influences)

[Luca]

Yeh i didn't read all of them as usual xd meh anyway i know the mainly purpose of that kind of texts, Turks are still Turks, we are like belong to nowhere: we are not European, Asian or African, we are like just Turks meh but that's right, today, Oghuz Turks especially Western Turkish people (Especially Aegean and Thracian Turks) are mostly Caucasian for sure, i mean, almost Europeans (except some cities like Aydın, they have dominantly Yörük population and it gives them many Asian influences)

Agree.
But I would say (and the study says the same), that this does not make any of these people, no matter how european/mena/central asian they are any less turk.
Instead, the study actually concluded that most Turks are mixed, but your culture and language are still more or less the same.