The Yamnaya Steppe Herders from Russia

Bashkirs are the direct descendants of the ancient Yamnaya steppe herders.

“Some part of the male population of Yamnaya culture, had SNP markers, which are currently found only in representatives of the Bashkirian clan Buryjan”. The overall snp (KMS75) was revealed by Sergei Malyshev on the basis of data from the full genome sequencing of the Yamnaya culture[1].

Snp KMS75, currently found only in the Bashkirs of the clans Buryjan and Singran [2].

So, proceeding from the above-mentioned fact, according to paleo-DNA data, the ancestors of Buryjan R1b-KMS75 and Singran R1b-KMS75 were representatives of a Yamnaya archaeological culture.

Then, in the Iron Age, the ethnic history of these clans goes back to the Massagetaes-Burydzhans tribes. Massagetaes-Burydzhans lived at the end of the 1st millennium BC. Later, Massagetaes-Burydzhans were included as a separate clan in the Sarmatian tribal union. In detail, the ethnic history of the ancestors of Buryjan and related with their clans — was considered in previous studies[3], therefore in this article on the ethnogenesis of R1b-KMS75 we will not dwell in detail.

Let's note just that according to the KR formula[4], the common ancestor of all Bashkirs from R1b-KMS75 lived near VIII century AD[5]. It is noteworthy that even until recently, representatives of the Bashkir clans preferred not to mingle with other clans, which allowed them to preserve the original phenotype of a tribe up to modern days.

As you can see, in addition to the genetic evidence of the Bashkirs and their ancestors belonging to the KMS75 subclade, we also have anthropological evidence of the origin of the Bashkirian Buryjan and Singran from the population of the Yamnaya archaeological culture.




Haplotypes of representatives from R1b-KMS75 subclade[6]:

1. 329335 Mr. Raiman, Buryjan clan Bashkortostan, RF R1b — KMS75, 12 24 14 10 11 14 12 12 12 13 13 30 16 9 10 11 11 25 15 19 30 15 15 16 17 11 11 19 23 16 15 20 16 37 37 13 12 11 9 15 16 8 10 10 8 10 11 12 23 23 16 11 12 12 14 8 12 24 20 13 12 12 13 11 11 12 12 34 15 9 16 12 23 26 20 13 11 13 12 10 9 12 12 10 11 11 30 12 13 25 13 10 10 20 15 19 13 24 17 12 15 24 12 25 19 10 14 17 9 11 11

2. 236257 Yanhari Buryjan Bashkir, Buransi b.1590, Bashkortostan, Yanhari-Buryjan clan Bashkortostan, RF, R1b-KMS75, 12 24 14 10 11 14 12 12 12 13 13 30 17 9 10 11 11 25 15 19 30 15 15 16 17 11 11 19 23 16 15 19 16 37 37 12 12

3. 259814 Yalan Buryjan Bashkir, Khasan (XIX), Ural, Bashkortostan, Yalan-Buryjan clan R1b-KMS75, 12 24 14 10 11 14 12 12 12 13 13 30 16 9 10 11 11 24 15 19 30 14 15 16 17 10 11 19 23 15 15 19 17 36 36 14 12 11 9 15 16 8 10 10 8 10 11 12 23 23 16 10 12 12 14 8 12 24 20 12 12 12 13 11 11 12 12

4. 263652 Yanhari 2 Buryjan Bashkir, Tashbulat (XIX), Bashkortostan, Yanhari-Buryjan clan, R1b-KMS75, 12 24 14 10 11 14 12 12 12 13 13 30 16 9 10 11 11 25 15 19 30 15 15 16 17 11 11 19 23 16 15 20 16 36 37 13 12 11 9 15 16 8 10 10 8 10 11 12 23 23 16 10 12 12 14 8 12 23 20 13 12 12 13 11 11 12 12

5. m17021701 Vedagor, Tamyan Tukabaev Bashkortostan, RF R1b-KMS75 (str)[7] 12 24 14 10 11 14 x x 12 13 13 30 x x x x 25 15 19 30 x x x x 16 x 20 x x x 12 x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x 25

Practically with 100% certainty it can be asserted that the found Yamnaya man from the R1b-KMS75 subclade, with its characteristic phenotype — is the direct ancestor of the Bashkirs from the Buryjan and Singran clans.

suyun.info/index.php?LANG=ENG&p=4_17062017_7_3

As a result, the modern phenotypes of some Bashkirian Buryjans and Singrans practically identically repeat the phenotypes of ancient representatives of Yamnaya culture, that is, many anthropological features characteristic of their distant ancestors-Yamnaya population have been preserved in many Buryjans and Singrans. Below are the phenotypes of R1b-KMS75, both ancient (Yamnaya) and modern (Bashkirs). Phenotypes of Bashkirs R1b-KMS75 strongly resemble phenotypes of men from Yamnaya culture.

Introduction
The ∼5000 BP spread of Steppe-related ancestry is widely acknowledged as a likely terminus post quem for the spread of the Indo-European language family to Europe at large 1,2. In Northern Europe, the Germanic languages, including German, Dutch, Frisian, English as well as the Nordic languages, constitute one of the dominant components of the historically known linguistic landscape, next to Balto-Slavic and Finno-Saamic. Here, the archaeological Corded Ware culture, including the Battle Axe and Single Grave cultures, as well as the Bell Beaker culture have been proposed as vectors for the introduction of Germanic languages 3–7.

However, a significant time gap of 2∼3 millennia exists between these first waves of Steppe-related ancestry (c. 5000 - 4500 BP) and the appearance of the oldest Germanic runic writings in the first centuries CE 8. Given the current lack of data, it cannot therefore be excluded that undocumented demographic changes during this intervening period shaped Northern Europe’s linguistic landscape over the past 4,000 - 4,500 years 9. During and especially before the Bronze Age, little is known about the distribution of the predecessor of the Germanic languages, at which stage it is referred to as Palaeo-Germanic 10. Lexical borrowing from Celtic 11 and into Finno-Saamic 12,13 is estimated to have occurred from the Late Bronze Age (3050 - 2500 BP), demonstrating its geographic position relative to these linguistic groups. However, in the absence of other linguistic evidence, the timing of the arrival of Palaeo-Germanic in Scandinavia as well as its trajectory from the Indo-European homeland still remains elusive 14–16.

The northern European Iron Age (∼2800 - 1575 BP) and the Migration Period (∼1575 - 1200 BP) are characterised by a series of revolutionary transitions: the ‘democratisation’ of metallurgy through ease of access to iron 17, the rise and fall of the Western Roman Empire 18 and the subsequent ‘barbarian’ invasions into and within Europe 19–21. A series of large-scale violent events dominated the political scene and were associated with recruiting warriors from a large and mixed origin 22. These events coincided with pervasive linguistic shifts, which are still reflected in the present-day European linguistic landscape. Here, for the first time we link these dramatic and contested changes with genetic evidence to determine if they were linked to population movements in northern Europe. Around the middle of the 3rd millennium BP, Palaeo-Germanic saw the effects of a set of defining sound changes, by which it developed into Proto-Germanic, the most recent common ancestor of all Germanic descendant languages 10,23,24. The Proto-Germanic speech community is assumed to have existed in Southern Scandinavia and Northern Germany throughout the Pre-Roman Iron Age (2500 - 1950 BP) 25,26, with the likely cultural sources being the Nordic Iron Age and the Jastorf culture 16,27. From the end of the Pre-Roman Iron Age, Proto-Germanic language continuum split into East, North and West Germanic, the latter two likely forming a subclade 28–31. The process coincided with multiple phases of expansion towards the south related to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, ultimately affecting the major civilizational centres of the Mediterranean in the Migration Period 32.

Of the East Germanic-speaking groups, the Goths were prominent actors in Late Antiquity. They settled in South-East Europe by 1850 BP 33. Following the Hunnic invasion, some Goths entered the territories of the Roman Empire, contributing to its fall, and established two kingdoms, one in Italy and another in France and Iberia. However, the pre-Migration Period origin of the Goths is contested. Their own oral history records an exodus from Scandinavia across the Baltic Sea 34–37. Combined with toponymical evidence 38, this resulted in theories of Sweden as the homeland for the Goths 35,36,39. Modern scholarship, especially from the field of history, have questioned these lines of evidence, and challenged the idea of a Scandinavian origin 40,41. In addition, archaeologists have questioned traditional interpretations of the East European Wielbark culture as a vector for the Goths 42.

Of the West Germanic-speaking groups several movements subsequent to the East Germanic expansion took place into areas previously inhabited by British Celtic and East Scandinavian populations. One such West Germanic group is the Langobards, who similarly traced their origins back to Southern Denmark or Northern Germany 43,44. Roman author Tacitus places them around the lower Elbe in the 1st century CE, spread south through Czechia, Hungary, and eventually established a kingdom in Italy from 1350 BP. To the west, in parts of Britain, immigrating West Germanic Anglo-Saxons replaced local Celtic speaking populations. While previous studies have shown that some Goths, Langobards and Anglo-Saxons carried Scandinavian ancestry, confirming the specific origin within Scandinavia has not been possible 45–48. Whereas the Migration Period was traditionally defined as a period of ‘folk migrations’ of Germanic and other tribes, recent scholarship is highly divided over the scale of these population movements as well as the authenticity of the origin stories of ‘Barbarian’ peoples 37,40,49–52. Thus, the northern European origins, as well as the potential genetic impact of these peoples on their regions of settlement, remain heavily disputed.

In Scandinavia, the populations continued to speak Northwest Germanic dialects well documented in runic inscriptions 53. During the Migration period (1575 - 1200 BP), radical changes led to the transformation of these dialects into Old Norse, the language spoken by Viking Age Scandinavians from ∼1200 until 800 BP 54. The 350 years after ∼1575 BP, which encompassed this period of cultural and linguistic change, was a time of great upheaval in Western and Northern Europe. The period saw volcanic activity resulting in global decreased temperatures 55 and reduced plant growth in Scandinavia, the Justinian plague and population collapse and recovery (Supplementary Note S7.3, S7.4). To what extent the formation of Old Norse may have been linked to these phenomena remains debated.

Hitherto, genetic evidence to collate with the events described above has been lacking. In the wake of two large-scale population replacements across Europe during the Holocene, studies of ancient and modern genomes have suggested a period of relatively stable population structure since the European Bronze Age 5,000 - 3,000 BP, with a gradient of higher ancestry from Neolithic Farmers in southern Europe to higher ancestry from Bronze Age Steppe Pastoralists in Northern Europe 1,2,56. This genetic continuity contrasts with ideas of the Iron Age and subsequent Migration Period (∼2800 - 1200 BP) in Northern Europe as considered by many archaeologists, historians and linguists to be the periods that shaped modern Europe 17,18,37,57. Migrations within Europe over the last 5,000 years would have represented interactions by much more closely related populations than the arrival of the Neolithic Farmers and Bronze Age Steppe Pastoralists, limiting the possibility of their detection in ancient DNA studies.

Recent studies have shown that with dense ancient DNA sampling, at sufficient sequencing depth for imputation (∼0.1X for whole genomes), the detection of fine scale population structure in closely related ancient populations is possible 58–60. To investigate the spread and diversification of Germanic-speaking populations, we sequenced 710 ancient genomes (Table, Supplementary Note S1A and S1B) from human populations across western Eurasia, with a focus on the northern European Iron Age and the bordering Celtic-speaking region of western Europe (Figure 1). Together with published ancient genomes from around the world, we selected samples with suitable average depth of coverage for imputation based on previous studies 59–61. After filtering and overlapping with the wealth of publicly available SNP capture data suitable for imputation (∼1X on targeted SNPs for 1240k capture), the final dataset contained 578 new and 3,939 published individuals covering 697,179 SNPs (Supplementary Note S5).