Origins of East Caucasus Gene Pool: Contributions of Autochthonous Bronze Age Populations and Migrations from West Asia Estimated from Y-Chromosome Data.

The gene pool of the East Caucasus, encompassing modern-day Azerbaijan and Dagestan populations, was studied alongside adjacent populations using 83 Y-chromosome SNP markers. The analysis of genetic distances among 18 populations ( = 2216) representing Nakh-Dagestani, Altaic, and Indo-European language families revealed the presence of three components (Steppe, Iranian, and Dagestani) that emerged in different historical periods. The Steppe component occurs only in Karanogais, indicating a recent medieval migration of Turkic-speaking nomads from the Eurasian steppe.

A Southeast Asian origin for present-day non-African human Y chromosomes.

The genomes of present-day humans outside Africa originated almost entirely from a single out-migration ~ 50,000-70,000 years ago, followed by mixture with Neanderthals contributing ~ 2% to all non-Africans. However, the details of this initial migration remain poorly understood because no ancient DNA analyses are available from this key time period, and interpretation of present-day autosomal data is complicated due to subsequent population movements/reshaping. One locus, however, does retain male-specific information from this early period: the Y chromosome, where a detailed calibrated phylogeny has been constructed.

Genetic affinities of Ukrainians from the maternal perspective.

The area of what is now the Ukraine has been the arena of large-scale demographic processes that may have left their traces in the contemporary gene pool of Ukrainians. In this study, we present new mitochondrial DNA data for 607 Ukrainians (hypervariable segment I sequences and coding region polymorphisms). To study the maternal affinities of Ukrainians at the level of separate mitochondrial haplotypes, we apply an original technique, the haplotype co-occurrence analysis.