Population pyramid of Central Asia in 2023The ethnolinguistic patchwork of Central Asia in 1992Map of the countries of Central Asia, Afghanistan (occasionally included), theCaspian Sea, and surrounding countries.
The nations which make up Central Asia are five of the formerSoviet republics:Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Turkmenistan,Tajikistan andUzbekistan, which have a total population of about 76 million.[1][2]Afghanistan is not always considered part of the region, but when it is, Central Asia has a total population of about 122 million (2016);Mongolia andXinjiang (part ofChina) is also sometimes considered part of Central Asia due to its Central Asian cultural ties and traditions, although geographically it is East Asian.[1][2] Most central Asians belong to religions which were introduced to the area within the last 1,500 years, such asSunni Islam,Shia Islam,Ismaili Islam,Tengriism andSyriac Christianity (mostlyEast Syriac).[3]Buddhism, however, was introduced to Central Asia over 2,200 years ago, andZoroastrianism, over 2,500 years ago.[4]
Genetic distance between different Eurasian populations and frequency of West- and East-Eurasian components.[17]
An analysis of Scytho-Siberianmatrilineal DNA lineages ofIron Age human remains from the Altai region found evidence of a mixture of West Eurasian and East Asian maternal lineages.[18] Prior to the Iron Age, all ancient maternal lineages in the Altai region were of West Eurasian origin, however Iron Age specimens show that Western Eurasian lineages were reduced by 50%, and East Asian lineages increased by 50%.[19][20] The authors suggested that the rise of East Asian mtDNA lineages likely happened within the Iron AgeScythian period.[21]
The ancestry of modern Central Asian populations is significantly derived from laterIndo-Iranian andTurkic populations.[22]
A genetic study published inNature in May 2018 examined the remains of four eliteTürk soldiers buried between ca. 300 AD and 700 AD.[23] 50% of the samples ofY-DNA belonged to the West Eurasianhaplogroup R1, while the other 50% belonged to East Eurasian haplogroupsQ andO.[24] The extracted samples ofmtDNA belonged mainly to East Eurasian haplogroupsC4b1,A14 andA15c, while one specimen carried the West Eurasian haplogroupH2a.[25] The authors suggested that central Asian nomadic populations may have been Turkicized by an East Asian minority elite, resulting in a small but detectable increase in East Asian ancestry. However, these authors also found that Türkic period individuals were extremely genetically diverse, with some individuals being of near complete West Eurasian descent. To explain this diversity of ancestry, they propose that there were also incoming West Eurasians moving eastward on the Eurasian steppe during the Türkic period, resulting in admixture.[26][27]
A 2020 study analyzed genetic data from 7 early medievalTürk skeletal remains fromEastern Turkic Khaganate burial sites in Mongolia.[28][29] The authors described the Türk samples as highly diverse, carrying on average 40% West Eurasian, and 60% East Eurasian ancestry. West Eurasian ancestry in the Türks combinedSarmatian-related andBMAC ancestry, while the East Eurasian ancestry was related toAncient Northeast Asians. The authors also observed that theWestern Steppe Herder ancestry in the Türks was largely inherited from male ancestors, which also corresponds with the marked increase of paternal haplogroups such asR andJ during the Türkic period in Mongolia.[30] Admixture between East and West Eurasian ancestors of the Türkic samples was dated to 500 CE, or roughly 8 generations prior.[31] Three of the Türkic-affiliated males carried thepaternal haplogroups J2a andJ1a, two carried haplogroupC-F3830, and one carriedR1a-Z93. The analyzedmaternal haplogroups were identified asD4,D2,B4,C4,H1 andU7.[32]
Mongolians andKazakhs derive most of their ancestry fromAncient Northeast Asians (60–94%), with a variable amount of West Eurasian admixture (6–40%) from a Bronze AgeWestern Steppe Herder source.[33] Similarly, theKyrgyz people derive a significant part of their ancestry from East Asian-related populations (c. 59.3–69.8%), as well as from Iranian-related sources. Modern Iranian-speaking Central Asians (Tajiks), in contrast to Turkic-speaking Central Asians, have less Northeast Asian ancestry (7.7–18.6%), but harbor anotherEast Eurasian component (8%) associated with indigenous South Asians (represented byAndamanese peoples).[34][35]Uzbeks can be modeled as 48.8–65.1% Iron AgeIndo-Iranians, and 34.9–51.2% Eastern SteppeXiongnu, from theMongolian Plateau, or as 40-55% Eastern Asian and 45-60% European/West Asian.[36][37] Ancestry related to one of the earliest inhabitants, particularly theAncient North Eurasians, is still found in low amounts among modern-day Central Asians.[38]
A 2022 study confirmed the genetic continuity between modernIndo-Iranian-speaking Central Asians andIron Age populations in southern Central Asia. Iron Age Central Asians were descended from historicalIndo-Iranians, who settled in the region at the end of theBronze Age. By the end of the Iron Age, East Asian ancestry was introduced via historical Turko-Mongol groups, but that type of ancestry remained low among remaining Indo-Iranian-speakers, while it makes up to 50% among modernTurkic-speaking Central Asians in northern Central Asia.[39]
Guarino-Vignon, P., Marchi, N., Bendezu-Sarmiento, J.et al. Genetic continuity of Indo-Iranian speakers since the Iron Age in southern Central Asia.Sci Rep12, 733 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04144-4
^Alekseenko, Aleksandr Nikolaevich (2000).Республика в зеркале переписей населения [Republic in the Mirror of the Population Censuses] (PDF).Population and Society: Newsletter of the Centre for Demography and Human Ecology (in Russian). Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences (47): 58–62. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
^González-Ruiz, Mercedes (2012)."Tracing the Origin of the East-West Population Admixture in the Altai Region (Central Asia)".PLOS ONE.7 (11) e48904.Bibcode:2012PLoSO...748904G.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0048904.PMC3494716.PMID23152818. "Studies on ancient mitochondrial DNA of this region suggest that the Altai Mountains played the role of a geographical barrier between West and East Eurasian lineages until the beginning of the Iron Age. After the 7th century BC, coinciding with Scythian expansion across the Eurasian steppes, a gradual influx of East Eurasian sequences in Western steppes is detected. However, the underlying events behind the genetic admixture in Altai during the Iron Age are still unresolved: 1) whether it was a result of migratory events (eastward firstly, westward secondly), or 2) whether it was a result of a local demographic expansion in a 'contact zone' between European and East Asian people. In the present work, we analyzed the mitochondrial DNA lineages in human remains from Bronze and Iron Age burials of Mongolian Altai"
^González-Ruiz 2012: "Archaeological findings, almost entirely provided by burial site discoveries, documented that the Scythians had European morphological features [7], [8], [12]. However, several recent works focusing on ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of Eastern Scythian burials [9], [10], [11], [16], [17], [18], [19] revealed that this population has a mixed mtDNA composition of West and East Eurasian lineages. This is particularly interesting for the timing of the early contacts between European and Asian people in Altai because all ancient DNA samples analysed so far from Central Asia belonging to a period before the Iron Age bore West Eurasian lineages [18], [20]."
^González-Ruiz 2012: "These molecular data raise two likely hypotheses for the origin of the genetic diversity and admixture among the Iron Age inhabitants of the Altai: 1) people holding west Eurasian lineages arrived at Altai Mountains with the eastward migration of Scythians and, once settled, they began to establish relationships with the neighbouring communities from East Asia holding East Eurasian lineages; 2) this was the result of the admixture between the native people inhabiting either sides of the Altai Mountains (people with West Eurasian lineages in Western Altai and East Eurasian lineages in the Eastern Altai), as a result of a demographic expansion during the Scythian period. Hence, the second hypothesis would provide support to the cultural transmission against the demic diffusion during the Scythian period."
^González-Ruiz 2012: "Concerning Bronze Age samples from the Mongolian Altai mountains analyzed in the present study, 100% of the mtDNA lineages (3 different lineages from 2 archaeological sites) belong to East Eurasian haplogroups, an opposite profile to that detected in the West side of the Altai [18], [20]. On the other hand, in the Iron Age samples of Mongolian Altai, the same proportion (50%) of East and Western Eurasian lineages were found, evidencing a perfect admixture between East and Western Eurasian lineages as in other Iron Age populations from central Asia and Siberia [10], [18], [19], [20], [40]. Combined with the previous studies performed so far in the Altai region, our results suggest that the Altai represented a boundary to gene flow up to the beginning of the Iron Age and that during the Scythian period of the Altai (5th to 3rd century BC) there were demographic events in the region that led to a population admixture in both sides of the Altai. Half of the shared haplotypes between ancient populations from Central Asia and South Siberia represent lineages present in both pre-Iron Age and Iron Age populations and all of these lineages have a west Eurasian origin. Moreover, considering both shared and non-shared haplotypes, it seems that the number of West Eurasian lineages does not increase in the Iron Age. These results allow us to hypothesise that the substrate of mtDNA lineages is already present in pre-Iron Age populations of the central Asia and that in the Iron Age (Scythian period) a population expansion lead to the admixture of pre-existing lineages. Thus, the admixture profile observed in the region during the Iron Age would not derive from a migratory movement from west to east, as has been hypothesised, but would represent a local population expansion in different directions. This population expansion, however, would be probably be a consequence of the introduction of new technology by the adoption of a new culture, supporting the idea of cultural transmission against the demic diffusion during Scythian period."
^Heyer, Evelyne; Balaresque, Patricia; Jobling, Mark A.; Quintana-Murci, Lluis; Chaix, Raphaelle; Segurel, Laure; Aldashev, Almaz; Hegay, Tanya (2009)."Genetic diversity and the emergence of ethnic groups in Central Asia".BMC Genetics.10 49.doi:10.1186/1471-2156-10-49.PMC2745423.PMID19723301.Our analysis of uniparental markers highlights in Central Asia the differences between Turkic and Indo-Iranian populations in their sex-specific differentiation and shows good congruence with anthropological data.
^Damgaard & Marchi 2018, p. 372: "These results suggest that Turk cultural customs were imposed by an East Asian minority elite onto central steppe nomad populations, resulting in a small detectable increase in East Asian ancestry. However, we also find that steppe nomad ancestry in this period was extremely heterogeneous with several individuals being genetically distributed at the extremes of the first principal component (Figure 2) separating Eastern and Western descent. Based on this notable heterogeneity, we interpret that during Medieval times, the steppe populations were exposed to gradual admixture from the East, while interacting with incoming west Eurasians. The strong variation is a direct window into ongoing admixture processes and to the multi-ethnic cultural organization of this period."
^Jeong 2020: "Türk (550-750 CE). Göktürkic tribes of the Altai Mountains established a political structure across Eurasia beginning in 552 CE, with an empire that ruled over Mongolia from 581-742 CE (Golden, 1992). A brief period of disunion occurred between 659-682 CE, during which the Chinese Tang dynasty laid claim over Mongolia...We analyzed individuals from 5 Türk sites in this study: Nomgonii Khundii (NOM), Shoroon Bumbagar (Türkic mausoleum; TUM), Zaan-Khoshuu (ZAA), Uliastai River Lower Terrace (ULI), and Umuumur uul (UGU)."
^Jeong 2020: "We observe a clear signal of male-biased WSH admixture among the EIA Sagly/Uyuk and during the Türkic period (i.e., more positive Z scores; Figure 5B), which also corresponds to the decline in the Y chromosome lineage Q1a and the concomitant rise of the western Eurasian lineages such as R and J (Figure S2A)."
^Jeong 2020: "The admixture dates estimated for the ancient Türkic and Uyghur individuals in this study correspond to ca. 500 CE: 8 ± 2 generations before the Türkic individuals and 12 ± 2 generations before the Uyghur individuals (represented by ZAA001 and Olon Dov individuals)."
^Zhao, Jing; Wurigemule, null; Sun, Jin; Xia, Ziyang; He, Guanglin; Yang, Xiaomin; Guo, Jianxin; Cheng, Hui-Zhen; Li, Yingxiang; Lin, Song; Yang, Tie-Lin; Hu, Xi; Du, Hua; Cheng, Peng; Hu, Rong (December 2020). "Genetic substructure and admixture of Mongolians and Kazakhs inferred from genome-wide array genotyping".Annals of Human Biology.47 (7–8):620–628.doi:10.1080/03014460.2020.1837952.ISSN1464-5033.PMID33059477.S2CID222839155. pp. 5-11: "Chinese Kazakhs shared significant more alleles with West Eurasians than any other Mongolian groups. We here confirm the genetic substructure within three Mongolian groups and Chinese Kazakhs was caused by the different amounts of West Eurasian related admixture in them." "We showed that there are genetic substructures within Mongolians corresponding to Ölöd, Chahar, and Inner Mongolian clusters, which is consistent with their tribe classifications. The substructure is shaped by the relatedness of Mongolians to West Eurasians. Mongolians and Kazakhs are on a genetic cline in terms of different proportions of West Eurasian related admixture from 6% to 40%. The genetic source for the West Eurasian ancestry was most likely Bronze Age Steppe population-related. We note that the small number of sampled individuals from different tribes is a limitation of the study. However, our findings are consistent with archaeological and ancient genomic evidence that the Bronze Age Steppe populations shaped the culture and genetic makeup of northern Eurasia through rapid expansion (Allentoft et al., 2015)."
^Shan-Shan Dai, Xierzhatijiang Sulaiman, Jainagul Isakova, Wei-Fang Xu, Najmudinov Tojiddin Abdulloevich, Manilova Elena Afanasevna, Khudoidodov Behruz Ibrohimovich, Xi Chen, Wei-Kang Yang, Ming-Shan Wang, Quan-Kuan Shen, Xing-Yan Yang, Yong-Gang Yao, Almaz A Aldashev, Abdusattor Saidov, Wei Chen, Lu-Feng Cheng, Min-Sheng Peng, Ya-Ping Zhang (25 August 2022)."The Genetic Echo of the Tarim Mummies in Modern Central Asians".academic.oup.com. Retrieved2022-12-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) "The major ancestry components in the Kyrgyz are from Baikal hunter-gatherer (i.e., Russia_Shamanka_Eneolithic; 59.3–69.8%) and Iranian farmer–related ancestries (16–23.8%). The remaining minor ancestry components are from Anatolian farmers (5.1–5.6%), Western European hunter-gatherers (5.3–6.6%) and ANE-related Tarim_EMBA1 (3.2–5.3%). The ancestry profiles of Tajik populations can be dissected into five components from related ancestries of Iranian farmer (43.8–52.8%), ANE (13.3–15.8%), Western European hunter-gatherer (9.5–11.8%), Baikal hunter-gatherer (7.7–17.1%), and Anatolian farmer (9.7–15.6%)."
^Shan-Shan Dai, Xierzhatijiang Sulaiman, Jainagul Isakova, Wei-Fang Xu, Najmudinov Tojiddin Abdulloevich, Manilova Elena Afanasevna, Khudoidodov Behruz Ibrohimovich, Xi Chen, Wei-Kang Yang, Ming-Shan Wang, Quan-Kuan Shen, Xing-Yan Yang, Yong-Gang Yao, Almaz A Aldashev, Abdusattor Saidov, Wei Chen, Lu-Feng Cheng, Min-Sheng Peng, Ya-Ping Zhang (25 August 2022)."The Genetic Echo of the Tarim Mummies in Modern Central Asians".academic.oup.com. Retrieved2022-12-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) "The major ancestry components in the Kyrgyz are from Baikal hunter-gatherer (i.e., Russia_Shamanka_Eneolithic; 59.3–69.8%) and Iranian farmer–related ancestries (16–23.8%). The remaining minor ancestry components are from Anatolian farmers (5.1–5.6%), Western European hunter-gatherers (5.3–6.6%) and ANE-related Tarim_EMBA1 (3.2–5.3%). The ancestry profiles of Tajik populations can be dissected into five components from related ancestries of Iranian farmer (43.8–52.8%), ANE (13.3–15.8%), Western European hunter-gatherer (9.5–11.8%), Baikal hunter-gatherer (7.7–17.1%), and Anatolian farmer (9.7–15.6%)."
^Min Junqing.The Present Situation and Characteristics of Contemporary Islam in China. JISMOR, 8.2010 Islam by province, page 29. Data from: Yang Zongde,Study on Current Muslim Population in China, Jinan Muslim, 2, 2010.
