Abstract
The Eastern Eurasian Steppe was home to historic empires of nomadic pastoralists, including the Xiongnu and the Mongols. However, little is known about the region's population history. Here, we reveal its dynamic genetic history by analyzing new genome-wide data for 214 ancient individuals spanning 6,000 years. We identify a pastoralist expansion into Mongolia ca. 3000 BCE, and by the Late Bronze Age, Mongolian populations were biogeographically structured into three distinct groups, all practicing dairy pastoralism regardless of ancestry. The Xiongnu emerged from the mixing of these populations and those from surrounding regions. By comparison, the Mongols exhibit much higher eastern Eurasian ancestry, resembling present-day Mongolic-speaking populations. Our results illuminate the complex interplay between genetic, sociopolitical, and cultural changes on the Eastern Steppe.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 890-904.e29 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Cell |
| Volume | 183 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 12 Nov 2020 |
Bibliographical note
© 2020 The Authors.Funding Information:
We thank D. Navaan, Z. Batsaikhan, V. Volkow, D. Tseveendorj, L. Erdenebold, M. Horton, Sh. Uranchimeg, B. Naran, N. Ser-Odjav, P. Konovalov, Kh. Lhagvasuren, N. Mamonova, E. Mijiddorj, L. Namsrainaidan, A.P. Okladnikov, Kh. Perlee, S. Danilov, and D.I. Burayev for their archaeological contributions and Solodovnikov Konstantin for his physical anthropological analysis. We thank the Department of Archaeology and Physical Anthropology at the National University of Mongolia and the Museum of the Buryat Scientific Center, SB RAS for their cooperation on this project. We thank R. Flad for comments on early manuscript drafts, M. Bleasdale and S. Gankhuyg for assistance with sampling, S. Nagel and M. Meyer for assistance with ssDNA library preparation, S. Nakagome for sharing a script to estimate population allele frequency from low-coverage sequence data, and P. Moorjani for granting access to the DATES program prior to publication. Permissions: The human remains analyzed in this study were reviewed and approved by the Mongolian Ministry of Culture and the Mongolian Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Sport under reference numbers A0122772 MN DE 0 8124, A0109258 MN DE 7 643, and A0117901 MN DE 9 4314 and declaration number 12-2091008-20E00225. Funding: This research was supported by the Max Planck Society, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sport of Mongolia (grant #2018/25 to E.M. and D.T.), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant #18-59-94020 to E.M. and D.T.), the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (grant #14.W03.31.0016 to N.K. B.A.B. D.A.M. and P.B.K.), the US National Science Foundation (BCS-1523264 to C.W.), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 1167 no. 257731206 to J.B.), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (2020R1C1C1003879 to C.J.), and the European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (under grant agreement numbers 771234-PALEORIDER to W.H. and 804884-DAIRYCULTURES to C.W.). C.W. C.J. E.M. and N.B. designed the research; C.W. and C.J. supervised the research; E.M. S.W. J.H. J.H.B. S.U. W.H. N.K. B.A.B. D.A.M, P.B.K. E.Z. A.V.M. N.B. and C.W. provided materials and resources; B.K.M. W.T.T.T. J.H.B. and E.M. performed archaeological data analysis; R.S. and C.C. performed genetic laboratory work; K.W. C.J. F.K. and S.S. performed genetic data analysis; B.K.M. K.W. W.T.T.T, C.J. and C.W. integrated the archaeological and genetic data; K.W. C.J. and C.W. wrote the paper, with contributions from B.K.M. W.T.T.T. J.H.B. and the other coauthors. The authors declare no competing interests.
Funding Information:
We thank D. Navaan, Z. Batsaikhan, V. Volkow, D. Tseveendorj, L. Erdenebold, M. Horton, Sh. Uranchimeg, B. Naran, N. Ser-Odjav, P. Konovalov, Kh. Lhagvasuren, N. Mamonova, E. Mijiddorj, L. Namsrainaidan, A.P. Okladnikov, Kh. Perlee, S. Danilov, and D.I. Burayev for their archaeological contributions and Solodovnikov Konstantin for his physical anthropological analysis. We thank the Department of Archaeology and Physical Anthropology at the National University of Mongolia and the Museum of the Buryat Scientific Center, SB RAS for their cooperation on this project. We thank R. Flad for comments on early manuscript drafts, M. Bleasdale and S. Gankhuyg for assistance with sampling, S. Nagel and M. Meyer for assistance with ssDNA library preparation, S. Nakagome for sharing a script to estimate population allele frequency from low-coverage sequence data, and P. Moorjani for granting access to the DATES program prior to publication. Permissions: The human remains analyzed in this study were reviewed and approved by the Mongolian Ministry of Culture and the Mongolian Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Sport under reference numbers A0122772 MN DE 0 8124, A0109258 MN DE 7 643, and A0117901 MN DE 9 4314 and declaration number 12-2091008-20E00225. Funding: This research was supported by the Max Planck Society , the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sport of Mongolia (grant # 2018/25 to E.M. and D.T.), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant # 18-59-94020 to E.M. and D.T.), the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (grant # 14.W03.31.0016 to N.K., B.A.B., D.A.M., and P.B.K.), the US National Science Foundation ( BCS-1523264 to C.W.), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ( SFB 1167 no. 257731206 to J.B.), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government ( MSIT ) ( 2020R1C1C1003879 to C.J.), and the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (under grant agreement numbers 771234-PALEORIDER to W.H. and 804884-DAIRYCULTURES to C.W.).
Keywords
- ancient DNA
- Eastern Steppe
- human population history
- migration
- Mongol empire
- Mongolia
- nomadic pastoralists
- Xiongnu empire