title: Testing the hypothesis of an ancient Roman soldier origin of the Liqian people in northwest China: a Y-chromosome perspective.
abstract: The Liqian people in north China are well known because of the controversial hypothesis of an ancient Roman mercenary origin. To test this hypothesis, 227 male individuals representing four Chinese populations were analyzed at 12 short tandem repeat (STR) loci and 12 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). At the haplogroup levels, 77% Liqian Y chromosomes were restricted to East Asia. Principal component (PC) and multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis suggests that the Liqians are closely related to Chinese populations, especially Han Chinese populations, whereas they greatly deviate from Central Asian and Western Eurasian populations. Further phylogenetic and admixture analysis confirmed that the Han Chinese contributed greatly to the Liqian gene pool. The Liqian and the Yugur people, regarded as kindred populations with common origins, present an underlying genetic difference in a median-joining network. Overall, a Roman mercenary origin could not be accepted as true according to paternal genetic variation, and the current Liqian population is more likely to be a subgroup of the Chinese majority Han.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
authors.forename: Ruixia
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
authors.forename: Lizhe
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: An
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.|School of History and Culture, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
authors.forename: Xunling
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
authors.forename: Gonghua
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
authors.forename: Weiping
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
authors.forename: Shijian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetics, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100101, China.
authors.forename: Jiujin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China. zhlu05@eyou.com.|School of Basic Medical Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China. zhlu05@eyou.com.
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xie
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y / Q000235:genetics*; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000266:history*; D006239:Haplotypes / Q000235:genetics; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats / Q000235:genetics; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000266:history*; D010802:Phylogeny; D025341:Principal Component Analysis / Q000266:history; D012384:Rome