During the 1st millennium before the Common Era (BCE), nomadic tribes associated with the Iron Age Scythian culture spread over the Eurasian Steppe, covering a territory of more than 3,500 km in breadth. To understand the demographic processes behind the spread of the Scythian culture, we analysed genomic data from eight individuals and a mitochondrial dataset of 96 individuals originating in eastern and western parts of the Eurasian Steppe. Genomic inference reveals that Scythians in the east and the west of the steppe zone can best be described as a mixture of Yamnaya-related ancestry and an East Asian component. Demographic modelling suggests independent origins for eastern and western groups with ongoing gene-flow between them, plausibly explaining the striking uniformity of their material culture. We also find evidence that significant gene-flow from east to west Eurasia must have occurred early during the Iron Age.
[...]
Since the PCA of west Eurasia in Fig. 4 does not allow one to examine the ancient samples in relation to contemporary East Asian populations, we also carried out PCA of all 2,345 modern individuals in the Human Origins dataset, onto which we also projected the ancient individuals (Fig. 5). It is evident from this PCA that ancestry of the Iron Age samples falls on a continuum between present-day west Eurasians and eastern non-Africans, which is in concordance with the mitochondrial haplogroup analyses. The eastern Scythians display nearly equal proportions of mtDNA lineages common in east and west Eurasia, whereas in the western Scythian groups, the frequency of lineages now common in east Eurasia is generally lower, even reaching zero in four samples of the initial Scythian phase of the eight to sixth century BCE (group #1 in Fig. 2), and reaches 18–26% during later periods (sixth to second century BCE; #2 and #3) (Supplementary Table 7).
The Scythian samples are in black:
|
Unterlander et al. "Ancestry and demography and descendants of Iron Age nomads of the Eurasian Steppe". Nature Communications, 2017.
3 comments
Corded Ware culture was mostly Yamnaya derived and they had many blonde haired people among them, so having yamnaya DNA doesn't mean Scythians were brunette. Anyway the fact that Scythians were increasingly mixed with Asians a) on an eastward cline and b) over time, is not denied by anyone - however since they were originally derived from proto iranic speaking Corded ware culture descended (sintashta) people who are genetically close to Russians and Swedes and Finns etc it is obvious that they were originally North/Eastern European in appearance and this is reflected in their art when they depict themselves. They intermarried with east asian peoples and eventually became Asian and this happened first with the eastern most of the scythian peoples. Saying "scythians are asian" is as incorrect as saying "scythians are white" - you can't combat misinfo with more misinfo
Blonde hair =/= Nordic. That would be like claiming Italians were ancient Egyptians because Egyptians undoubtably mostly had dark hair and brown eyes. Hair color does not, ever substitute for genetic data. Even in the Middle East there are people with blonde hair, they are not Northern European. It is not surprising that they are closer to the people with the highest East Asian admixture/Yamnaya in Europe. Swedes, Finns and Russians. Scythians were a linguistic group the assumption that they were "originally all blondes before mixing", is flawed because it assumes they were ever a single existing homogeneous nation, they were not. And Greeks used the term interchangeably with all people from the steppe. Furthermore all the groups who associated them with blondism WERE darker groups. It is a fact that lighter hair has different definition in darker populations. Due to the fact they are mostly dark haired even brown hair was considered light by Greeks. Modern day Northern Europeans aren't even all blondes, it is a minority even amongst them. So to suggest everyone within a group was blonde is nothing short of pure fantasy. Ancient groups also had habits of dying their hair lighter colors. So just because some artworks portray these people as that way doesn't mean it was reality.
Scythians did not directly come from the yamna culture, as the yamna culture steppe herders migrated west ward towards Europe, they interbreed with eastern and western hunter gatherers who had blonde hair and blue eyes as well as north caucasian hunter gatherers who originated from modern day Northeast turkey Georgia, Azerbaijan and Chechnya region of Russia, to form the corded ware culture which in turn, gave birth to the sinhasta,anfranesvio and Andronovo cultures which were all indo Iranian.
Post a Comment
Be civil. Write clearly. Proofread and preview. Don't troll or spam. Stay on topic.