Haplogroup R1a and CWC ancestry predominate in Fennic, Ugric, and Samoyedic groups

Open access Genes reveal traces of common recent demographic history for most of the Uralic-speaking populations, by Tambets et al. Genome Biology (2018).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Methods

A total of 286 samples of Uralic-speaking individuals, of those 121 genotyped in this study, were analysed in the context of 1514 Eurasian samples (including 14 samples published for the first time) based on whole genome single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (Additional file 1: Table S1). All these samples, together with the larger sample set of Uralic speakers, were characterized for mtDNA and chrY markers.

The question as which material cultures may

… Read the rest

Mitogenomes from Avar nomadic elite show Inner Asian origin

Inner Asian maternal genetic origin of the Avar period nomadic elite in the 7th century AD Carpathian Basin, by Csáky et al. bioRxiv (2018).

Abstract (emphasis mine):

After 568 AD the nomadic Avars settled in the Carpathian Basin and founded their empire, which was an important force in Central Europe until the beginning of the 9th century AD. The Avar elite was probably of Inner Asian origin; its identification with the Rourans (who ruled the region of today’s Mongolia and North China in the 4th-6th centuries AD) is widely accepted in the historical research.

Here, we study the whole

… Read the rest

Hungarian mitogenomes similar to East and West Slavs, but genetic substratum predates their historic contacts

Whole mitochondrial genome diversity in two Hungarian populations, Malyarchuk et al. Mol Genet Genomics (2018).

Abstract:

Complete mitochondrial genomics is an effective tool for studying the demographic history of human populations, but there is still a deficit of mitogenomic data in European populations. In this paper, we present results of study of variability of 80 complete mitochondrial genomes in two Hungarian populations from eastern part of Hungary (Szeged and Debrecen areas). The genetic diversity of Hungarian mitogenomes is remarkably high, reaching 99.9% in a combined sample. According to the analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), European populations showed a low,

… Read the rest