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Selkup y-chromosomal and other genetic data in a regional ethnographic context
Topic Started: Dec 2 2005, 03:35:30 AM (633 Views)
black man
The Right Hand
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revised (update at the bottom of the post)

Selkups are considered to be "southern Samoyedic". Since the other languages/ethnic groups of that category died out, we cannot make many valid comparisons. Some "southern Samoyedics" have lived in the Sayan region. Others were absorbed by the NE Kazakhs.




Authors from physical anthropology and archaeological material culture tried to relate Samodians in general to Okunev culture and ancient Lake Baikal region (Nikolaev, Prehistorical cultural links along the Yenisei: relevations from a bronze idol, pp. 259-60). One offspring of the accordingly supposed ancient "proto-Samoyedic" culture to the south and southeast of present-day Selkups and Kets is supposed to be the taiga culture of the middle Yenisei. But it's "sometimes" hard to judge whether Selkups borrowed certain aspects of their spiritual and material culture from Kets or vice versa because of notorious parallels (Nikolaev, p. 260). Most likely, Yeniseians were (pre-historically) less aboriginal to the taiga and went there as a Caucasoid-mixed population together with elements of Tagar culture (Makarov and Batashev, Cultural origins of the taiga-dwelling peoples of the middle Yenisei, p. 239-40), whereas the more East Eurasian Samodians were already there (ibid.).

On the other hand, there is evidence for Kets having become Selkups: one marked assimilation trend in favour of Selkup language could be observed in the 20th century only. Plus, there could have been earlier assimilation processes because the surnames Ket' river Selkup-speakers of the 18th century indicated that they descended from Ket-speakers (Kim-Maloney, Shared Selkup-Ket terminology in ritual and spiritual culture, p. 170).

In the light of this, Selkup y hg and mtDNA hg distributions should be considered...

Most Selkups seem to belong to y hg Q (66,4% according to Tambets and Karafet and between 50 and 75% according to Stepanov). I.e., their y hg distribution heavily deviates from that of Nenets and Nganasans. This could be due to successive assimilation of Ket (and maybe also of extinct Yeniseian) people because Kets were reported to have very high frequencies of y hg Q, too (Karafet according to Tambets 2004; Stepanov 2006).

According to Villems (cited Kunnap), the "Caucasoid" element (more than 50%) in Selkup mtDNA could be "recent":

Quote:
 
Richard Villems’ data confirm that: in the maternal lineages (mtDNA) Nenetses inherit ca 53 %, Nganasans 88 % and Selkups 36 % from Asia (Villems 2002). Thereby, e.g., Selkups’ European-related maternal lineages have few varieties, indicating that those reached the Selkups relatively recently, giving no branches as yet. Villems also indicates that when observing the “classical set” of the Mongoloid maternal lineages, as, for instance, in the Chinese, Mongols or Kirghizes, then it is formed from the groups A, B, F and M of maternal lineages. At the same time, from the four groups practically only M has spread among Lapps, Finns, Karelians and Nenetses. He supposes that the Uralic-speaking peoples could have had contacts with the maternal lineages of the Paleosiberian settlers among whom very possibly predominated single variants of Asian M-lineages. (Villems 2002.)


Villems, R. 2002, Uurali keelkonna rahvaste geenitiigist (On the genetic pool of the peoples of the Uralic language family). – Õpetatud Eesti Seltsi Aastaraamat, Tartu. (Forthcoming.); quote from http://www.ut.ee/Ural/kynnap/kpls.html , "Possible Language Shifts in the Uralic Language Group", by Ago Künnap, University of Tartu.

Then again, low genetic diversity might simply be a side effect of their ethno-demographic history. Therefore, considering partial Yeniseian origins as for Selkup mtDNA might not be wrong, either.




update

L53+, L54-: Chelkans, Tubalars, i.e., certain "northern Altaians" (Dulik et al. 2012, fig. S1 / table S4)
L53+, particularly close to Chechens and one Pole; still relatively close to L330+ cluster (Volkov 2013, p. 86, 5th passage / p. 84, fig. 1): Selkups
L53+, L54+, L330+: Kets, "northern Altaians", "southern Altaians", Khanty, Sayan populations (Volkov 2013, pp. 84-86); Chelkans, i.e., certain "northern Altaians", and Altai-kizhi, i.e., certain "southern Altaians" (Dulik et al. 2012, fig. S1 / table S4)

Note that the haplotypes of the L53+, L54- "northern Altaian" samples of Dulik et al. overlap with those of L53+, L330+ samples when 15 STRs are examined (Regueiro et al. 2012, fig. 5c / table 1). This might imply a larger distance from the Selkups. Then again, Volkov seems to refer to Selkup L53+ samples from the project data base, which might be defined by many more STR markers. Moreover, there seems to be an Altai-Sayan cluster defined by L330+, to which both Selkups and certain "northern Altaians" do not belong. And at the same time it is imaginable that the ancestors of Selkups and "northern Altaians" once belonged to a continuum of populations along the Ob river and in neighbouring regions. (Actually, the Ob river has its source in the Altai mountains.) So, unless more markers are tested, it cannot be said to what extent exactly the ancestors of L53+ Selkups were related to the ancestors of L53+ Kets. Amerindians having the L53+ mutations as well, the ancestors of the L53+ Selkups could have split from those of the Kets in the Palaeolithic like the ancestors of Amerindians did.
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Ebizur
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Why would you consider Selkups to be more aboriginal to their present area of residence and more Eastern Eurasian in origin than the Kets? As far as I recall, the Selkups have a much larger genetic component of Caucasoid origin than the Kets, whose mtDNA is overwhelmingly of Mongoloid affinity.
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black man
The Right Hand
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JCA
Jul 14 2013, 04:36:10 AM
Why would you consider Selkups to be more aboriginal to their present area of residence and more Eastern Eurasian in origin than the Kets? As far as I recall, the Selkups have a much larger genetic component of Caucasoid origin than the Kets, whose mtDNA is overwhelmingly of Mongoloid affinity.
Who says that?




AFAIK, both Selkups and Kets are newcomers at their present-day major locations with their most recent migrations to the north even being recorded by historiographic sources. Both Samodians and Yeniseians seem to be from the South Siberian part of the taiga zone and might have been part Caucasoid from ancient times on. According to Russian anthropologists, extinct populations considered to be related to premodern Yukaghirs originally inhabited northern Siberia. These extinct northern Siberians are assumed to have been more East Eurasian. So they have might have contributed a lot to the East Eurasian features in present-day Samodians and Yeniseians.

Major sources are oral history and archaeology, AFAIK. Further, there is physical anthropology. And there is toponymy. Myself being more interested in oral history and physical anthropology, I know less about archaeology and toponymy. To my knowledge, archaeologists wrote that there is cultural continuity in northern Siberia from earlier on (prior to Samodian innovations). (But it's long ago since I read about that. Plus, I probably forgot most of what I read about that.) And concerning toponymy, someone recently wrote that the river names ending on -cet, -shet etc (once associated with extinct Yeniseians) could be associated with Ugrians as well. ("Northern Altaians" are btw associated with Ugrians, too. So that shouldn't surprise, I think.) Ket oral history is quite unambiguous. Samodian oral histories are said to point to assimilation processes involving "original" Samodians from the south and kind of unknown, North Eurasian aborigines. Unfortunately, most papers written on genetic studies on these populations are so far quite eurocentric, though. There are hardly any publically available data which can be associated with clan lineages, tribes etc.

addenda:

people interested in the physical anthropology of North Asia typically described Yeniseians as "Amerindian"-looking and Samodians as more conventionally North Asian-looking. According to literature, "East Eurasianness" seems to increase from southwest to northeast with southern Selkups being the "least East Eurasian" and Enets and Nganasans the "most East Eurasian". (Nenets in the northwest and Kets in the southeast appear to be in between; Mators and Kamass, who were once known as the southeasternmost Samodians, were described as very Caucasoid.)

Dienekes' mathematical experiments with the autosomal data of North Asians didn't reveal any differences between the "Central Siberian" genetic components in Selkups and Kets. This might confirm the idea that Selkups and Kets were traditionally allied and that they might have been intermarrying for quite a while to the extent that they are hard to distinguish one from another, now. However, Selkups (and Kets) appear to be very different from Nganasans.

Most likely, a heavy Caucasoid genetic component in both Selkups and Kets was being cached because it was too ancient to be revealed as Caucasoid. Same for the East Eurasian contribution to the "Central Siberian" component in Selkups and Kets. In any case, Nganasans and Enets, the phenotypically "most East Eurasian" Middle Siberian aboriginal populations, are not just very few in number but also geographically very isolated. So I think that the emigration of pure-bred East Eurasians to regions to the west of the Yenisei was always very limited.
Edited by black man, Jul 14 2013, 07:51:48 AM.
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Ebizur
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black man
Jul 14 2013, 06:39:54 AM
Who says that?
You, unless I have misunderstood something in this previous post of yours.

black man
 
Authors from physical anthropology and archaeological material culture tried to relate Samodians in general to Okunev culture and ancient Lake Baikal region (Nikolaev, Prehistorical cultural links along the Yenisei: relevations from a bronze idol, pp. 259-60). One offspring of the accordingly supposed ancient "proto-Samoyedic" culture to the south and southeast of present-day Selkups and Kets is supposed to be the taiga culture of the middle Yenisei. But it's "sometimes" hard to judge whether Selkups borrowed certain aspects of their spiritual and material culture from Kets or vice versa because of notorious parallels (Nikolaev, p. 260). Most likely, Yeniseians were (pre-historically) less aboriginal to the taiga and went there as a Caucasoid-mixed population together with elements of Tagar culture (Makarov and Batashev, Cultural origins of the taiga-dwelling peoples of the middle Yenisei, p. 239-40), whereas the more East Eurasian Samodians were already there (ibid.).

If I remember correctly, the only supposedly Caucasoid-derived mtDNA haplogroup that is found with any notable frequency in Kets is U4, which exhibits a very odd distribution for a supposedly Caucasoid haplogroup, being found with greatest frequency and diversity in populations of western Siberia and the Urals.

The Selkups, on the other hand, seem to belong to Caucasoid mtDNA haplogroups in the majority, and they look much more superficially Caucasoid, too. I recall having seen photos of Selkups with blue eyes, blond hair, etc.
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black man
The Right Hand
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JCA
Jul 14 2013, 07:34:22 AM
black man
Jul 14 2013, 06:39:54 AM
Who says that?
You, unless I have misunderstood something in this previous post of yours.

black man
 
Authors from physical anthropology and archaeological material culture tried to relate Samodians in general to Okunev culture and ancient Lake Baikal region (Nikolaev, Prehistorical cultural links along the Yenisei: relevations from a bronze idol, pp. 259-60). One offspring of the accordingly supposed ancient "proto-Samoyedic" culture to the south and southeast of present-day Selkups and Kets is supposed to be the taiga culture of the middle Yenisei. But it's "sometimes" hard to judge whether Selkups borrowed certain aspects of their spiritual and material culture from Kets or vice versa because of notorious parallels (Nikolaev, p. 260). Most likely, Yeniseians were (pre-historically) less aboriginal to the taiga and went there as a Caucasoid-mixed population together with elements of Tagar culture (Makarov and Batashev, Cultural origins of the taiga-dwelling peoples of the middle Yenisei, p. 239-40), whereas the more East Eurasian Samodians were already there (ibid.).

If I remember correctly, the only supposedly Caucasoid-derived mtDNA haplogroup that is found with any notable frequency in Kets is U4, which exhibits a very odd distribution for a supposedly Caucasoid haplogroup, being found with greatest frequency and diversity in populations of western Siberia and the Urals.

The Selkups, on the other hand, seem to belong to Caucasoid mtDNA haplogroups in the majority, and they look much more superficially Caucasoid, too. I recall having seen photos of Selkups with blue eyes, blond hair, etc.
I changed the subject in that passage. Kets and ancient Yeniseians shouldn't be equated although ancient Yeniseians can be reconstructed from information about Kets and some of their former neighbours.

I think, a more complete picture would be like this concerning ancient times:

lower Yenisei left bank: unknown ........................ lower Yenisei right bank: unknown
middle Yenisei left bank: Ugrians ......................... middle Yenisei right bank: less Caucasoid Samodians???
northern Altais: Caucasoids ............................... Sayans: more Caucasoid Samodians???
.................................... southern Altais: Yeniseians??? ..................................................

Speaking of phenotypes, at least it could explain why Kets are relatively dark-pigmented despite of heavy Caucasoid admixture.

Apart from that, it still more or less looked like this shortly prior to modernisation:

lower Yenisei left bank: more Caucasoid Samodians (Nenets) ........................ lower Yenisei right bank: less Caucasoid Samodians of partly unknown ancestry (Nganasans)
middle Yenisei left bank: more Caucasoid Samodians (Selkups) ...................... middle Yenisei right bank: Yeniseians (Kets) and Tungus (Evenks)
northern Altais: Turkic-speakers with Samodian and Yeniseian ancestors ......... Sayans: Yeniseians, more Caucasoid Samodians and Turkic-speakers who were going to assimilate the former
.................................... southern Altais: Mongols and Turkic-speakers ..................................................
Edited by black man, Jul 14 2013, 05:07:23 PM.
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