title: East Eurasian ancestry in the middle of Europe: genetic footprints of Steppe nomads in the genomes of Belarusian Lipka Tatars.
abstract: Medieval era encounters of nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe and largely sedentary East Europeans had a variety of demographic and cultural consequences. Amongst these outcomes was the emergence of the Lipka Tatars-a Slavic-speaking Sunni-Muslim minority residing in modern Belarus, Lithuania and Poland, whose ancestors arrived in these territories via several migration waves, mainly from the Golden Horde. Our results show that Belarusian Lipka Tatars share a substantial part of their gene pool with Europeans as indicated by their Y-chromosomal, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA variation. Nevertheless, Belarusian Lipkas still retain a strong genetic signal of their nomadic ancestry, witnessed by the presence of common Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA variants as well as autosomal segments identical by descent between Lipkas and East Eurasians from temperate and northern regions. Hence, we document Lipka Tatars as a unique example of former Medieval migrants into Central Europe, who became sedentary, changed language to Slavic, yet preserved their faith and retained, both uni- and bi-parentally, a clear genetic echo of a complex population interplay throughout the Eurasian Steppe Belt, extending from Central Europe to northern China.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetics and Cytology, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus.
authors.forename: Vasili
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pankratov
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Centre, RAS, Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia.|Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Sergei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Litvinov
authors.affiliation: Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.|School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: Alexei
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kassian
authors.affiliation: Belarusian State University, Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science Department of Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics, Minsk, Belarus.
authors.forename: Dzmitry
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shulhin
authors.affiliation: Center of analytical and genetic engineering studies, Institute of Microbiology, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus.
authors.forename: Lieve
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tchebotarev
authors.affiliation: Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Bayazit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Yunusbayev
authors.affiliation: Institute of Mathematical Statistics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Märt
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Möls
authors.affiliation: Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia.|Laboratory of Ethnogenomics, Institute of Molecular Biology, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Yerevan, 0014, Armenia.
authors.forename: Hovhannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sahakyan
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ethnogenomics, Institute of Molecular Biology, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Yerevan, 0014, Armenia.
authors.forename: Levon
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yepiskoposyan
authors.affiliation: Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Siiri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rootsi
authors.affiliation: Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia.|Department of Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Ene
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Metspalu
authors.affiliation: The Research Institute for Medical Genetics, 634050, Tomsk, Russia.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Golubenko
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics and Fundamental Medicine of Bashkir State University, Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia.
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ekomasova
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics and Fundamental Medicine of Bashkir State University, Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia.|Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology, Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Russia.
authors.forename: Farida
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Akhatova
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Centre, RAS, Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia.|Department of Genetics and Fundamental Medicine of Bashkir State University, Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia.
authors.forename: Elza
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Khusnutdinova
authors.affiliation: Eco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie, UMR 7206 CNRS, MNHN, Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Universités, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Musée de l'Homme, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Evelyne
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Heyer
authors.affiliation: Eco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie, UMR 7206 CNRS, MNHN, Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Universités, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Musée de l'Homme, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Phillip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Endicott
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, Russia.
authors.forename: Miroslava
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Derenko
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biological Problems of the North, Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, Russia.
authors.forename: Boris
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Malyarchuk
authors.affiliation: Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Mait
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Metspalu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetics and Cytology, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus.
authors.forename: Oleg
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Davydenko
authors.affiliation: Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia.|Department of Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Villems
authors.affiliation: Institute of Genetics and Cytology, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus.|Estonian Biocentre, Tartu, Estonia.
authors.forename: Alena
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kushniarevich
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D041322:Chromosomes, Human, Y / Q000235:genetics; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics*; D005060:Europe; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D005828:Genetics, Population / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D011044:Poland; D014171:Transients and Migrants; D044465:White People / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial