Two sources of the Russian patrilineal heritage in their Eurasian context.
Progress in the mapping of population genetic substructure provides a core source of data for the reconstruction of the demographic history of our species and for the discovery of common signals relevant to disease research: These two aspects of enquiry overlap in their empirical data content and are especially informative at continental and subcontinental levels. In the present study of the variation of the Y chromosome pool of ethnic Russians, we show that the patrilineages within the pre-Ivan the Terrible historic borders of Russia have two main distinct sources. One of these antedates the linguistic split between West and East Slavonic-speaking people and is common for the two groups; the other is genetically highlighted by the pre-eminence of haplogroup (hg) N3 and is most parsimoniously explained by extensive assimilation of (or language change in) northeastern indigenous Finno-Ugric tribes. Although hg N3 is common for both East European and Siberian Y chromosomes, other typically Siberian or Mongolian hgs (Q and C) have negligible influence within the studied Russian Y chromosome pool. The distribution of all frequent Y chromosome haplogroups (which account for 95% of the Y chromosomal spectrum in Russians) follows a similar north-south clinal pattern among autosomal markers, apparent from synthetic maps. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) plots comparing intra ethnic and interethnic variation of Y chromosome in Europe show that although well detectable, intraethnic variation signals do not cross interethnic borders, except between Poles, Ukrainians, and central-southern Russians, thereby revealing their overwhelmingly shared patrilineal ancestry.
Balanovsky
Oleg
O
Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, 115478 Moscow, Russia. balanovsky@inbox.ru
Rootsi
Siiri
S
Pshenichnov
Andrey
A
Kivisild
Toomas
T
Churnosov
Michail
M
Evseeva
Irina
I
Pocheshkhova
Elvira
E
Boldyreva
Margarita
M
Yankovsky
Nikolay
N
Balanovska
Elena
E
Villems
Richard
R
D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics*; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y; D005006:Ethnicity; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006801:Humans; D012426:Russia; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*