Ancient North Eurasian

• 1. Defining The Mal'ta Boy Lineage

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  The Hermitage Museum in Saint-Petersburg holds a single skeleton labeled MA-1, discovered during excavations in the 1920s. This individual lived 24,000 years ago near the Mal'ta site in central Siberia. Scientists now use this specimen to define an entire ancestral genetic component called Ancient North Eurasian. The Mal'ta boy represents one of the earliest known populations carrying this specific lineage. His remains were found alongside tomb artifacts that hint at burial practices from the Last Glacial Maximum period. Genetic analysis reveals his Y-chromosome belongs to haplogroup P-M45, which originated around 44,000 years ago in South or Southeast Asia. His maternal line traces back to subclades of haplogroup U, commonly found among West Eurasian populations today. This unique combination of markers sets him apart from other ancient groups like the Tianyuan man from Northern China. Researchers also study samples from the Afontova Gora site and the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site to build a complete picture of these Paleolithic Siberians. Together, these three locations form the core evidence for what we call the ANE gene pool.

• 2. Paleolithic Admixture Origins

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  An early West Eurasian population migrated via a northern route into Siberia roughly 38,000 years before present. They encountered an Ancient East Eurasian group that had arrived earlier through a southern route during the Initial Upper Paleolithic period. These two distinct populations mixed to create the Ancient North Eurasian gene pool. The resulting ancestry consists of approximately 65% West Eurasian components and 35% East Eurasian components. Scientists model this average split as roughly two-thirds early West Eurasian and one-third early East Eurasian. The West Eurasian source is best represented by individuals like Kostenki-14, while the East Eurasian source resembles the 40,000-year-old Tianyuan man. This admixture event occurred during the Upper Paleolithic period in deep prehistory. The Pleistocene ANE gene pool likely carried so-called Western features visible in later descendants. Grebenyuk et al. describe these communities as Early Upper Paleolithic tribes of hunters belonging to one of the earliest migration waves into Siberia. Their initial peopling of Northeastern Asia could have happened both from West to East and from South to North. This genetic bridge connects modern western Eurasians and Native Americans while remaining distant from modern East Asians.

• 3. Migrations To The Americas

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  Between 20,000 and 25,000 years ago, a branch of Ancient North Eurasian people mixed with Ancient East Asians. This union led to the emergence of Ancestral Native American populations. Jennifer Raff suggests this mixing occurred around 25,000 years ago when ANE groups encountered ancient East Asian daughter populations. Two opposing theories explain how these migrations united the groups. One theory proposes that Ancient North Eurasians migrated south to East Asia or Southern Siberia to meet their counterparts. Genetic evidence from Lake Baikal in Mongolia supports this area as the location where the admixture took place. A third theory known as the Beringian standstill hypothesis suggests that East Asians instead migrated north to Northeastern Siberia. In this scenario, they mixed with ANE descendants before diverging in Beringia to form distinct Native American lineages. Maternal and nuclear DNA evidence support the Beringian model, though paternal DNA evidence presents conflicting data. The descendants include Ancient Beringian/Ancestral Native American lineages based on the genome of an infant found at the Upward Sun River site. This specimen, dubbed USR1, is dated to 11,500 years ago. Estimates show that between 14% and 38% of Native American ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal'ta-Buret' population.

• 4. Expansion Across Eurasia

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  ANE populations migrated westward into Europe long after the Paleolithic period ended. They mixed with European Western hunter-gatherer groups to form the Eastern hunter-gatherer lineage around 70% ANE ancestry. Later, these Eastern hunter-gatherers combined with Caucasus hunter-gatherers to create the Western Steppe Herder group. This new group became widely dispersed across Eurasia during the Bronze Age. Genomic studies indicate that the Yamnaya culture brought the ANE component to Western Europe. Modern European populations carry up to 20% ANE ancestry according to Lazaridis et al. Evidence suggests that as Ancient North Eurasians migrated westward from Eastern Siberia, they absorbed Western Hunter-Gatherers and other West Eurasian populations. Scandinavian hunter-gatherers buried at Motala in Sweden around 6000 BC received later admixture from EHG who entered through the coast of Norway. The European-Siberian cline defined by Eastern hunter-gatherer-like ancestry stretched from Central Europe to Western Siberia and was already established 10,000 years ago. A specific sample named Tutkaul1 from Tajikistan displays affinity for Eastern hunter-gatherers while being closely related to Afontova Gora 3.

• 5. The Tarim Mummies Legacy

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  A genomic study published in 2021 identified early Bronze Age Tarim mummies dating from 2,135 to 1,623 BCE as primary descendants of a population represented by the Afontova Gora 3 specimen. These individuals show high genetic affinity with AG3, which accounts for about 72% of their ancestry. The remaining 28% derives from Baikal Early Bronze Age Northeast Asian populations. The Tarim mummies are among only a few known Holocene populations that derive most of their ancestry from Pleistocene ANE groups. They survived in a type of genetic bottleneck within the Tarim basin where they preserved and perpetuated their ANE ancestry. Their so-called Western physical features are probably due to their connection to the Pleistocene ANE gene pool. Zhang et al. proposed that these Western-like features could be attributed directly to Ancient North Eurasian ancestry. Previous craniometric analyses found that early Tarim mummies formed their own cluster distinct from European-related Steppe pastoralists or East Asian populations further east. They displayed an affinity for two specimens from the Harappan site of the Indus Valley Civilisation. This makes them the best representatives of pre-pastoralist ANE-related populations that once inhabited Central Asia and southern Siberia.

• 6. Phenotypic Traits And Blond Hair

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  Genomic studies by Raghavan et al. suggested that Mal'ta boy may have had brown eyes, relatively dark hair, and dark skin. However, this analysis was based on extremely low coverage of DNA that might not give accurate predictions of pigmentation. Mathieson et al. could not determine if Mal'ta 1 boy possessed the derived allele associated with blond hair in ANE descendants. The earliest known individual with the specific mutated allele rs12821256 of the KITLG gene is a female south-central Siberian ANE individual from the Afontova Gora 3 site. This allele appears later in ANE-derived Eastern Hunter-Gatherer populations at Samara, Motala, and Ukraine around 10,000 BP. It then spreads to populations with Steppe ancestry. Geneticist David Reich stated that the KITLG gene for blond hair probably entered continental Europe via a population migration wave from the Eurasian steppe. The gene was also found among the Tarim mummies. Kozintsev argues that historical Southern Siberian Okunevo populations possess a distinct craniometric phenotype dubbed Americanoid. Craniometric data on ANE-rich remains show them clustering most closely with remains from the Pit-Comb Ware culture in Eastern Europe.

• 7. Comparative Mythology Connections

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  Scholars of comparative mythology argue that Ancient North Eurasians shared myths reconstructible through stories attested within cultures stretching from the Pontic-Caspian steppe to the American continent. The mytheme of the dog guarding the Otherworld possibly stems from an older Ancient North Eurasian belief. Similar motifs appear in Indo-European, Native American, and Siberian mythology. In Siouan, Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Central and South American beliefs, a fierce guard dog resided in the Milky Way. This celestial path served as the route for souls in the afterlife. Crossing it became a test for the dead. The Siberian Chukchi and Tungus believed in a guardian-of-the-afterlife dog that would absorb the dead man's soul. In Indo-European myths, the figure of the dog is embodied by Cerberus, Sarvarā, and Garmr. Zoroastrianism features two four-eyed dogs guarding the bridge to the afterlife called Chinvat Bridge. Anthony and Brown note this might be one of the oldest mythemes recoverable through comparative mythology. A second series of beliefs connects dogs with healing rather than death. Ancient Near Eastern and Turkic-Kipchaq myths associate dogs with healing and categorize them as impure.