Ancient DNA reveals the prehistory of the Uralic and Yeniseian peoples

Zeng T.C. Vyazov L.A. Kim A. Flegontov P. Sirak K. Maier R. Lazaridis I. Akbari A. Frachetti M. Tishkin A.A. Ryabogina N.E. Agapov S.A. Agapov D.S. Alekseev A.N. Boeskorov G.G. Derevianko A.P. Dyakonov V.M. Enshin D.N. Fribus A.V. Frolov Y.V. Grushin S.P. Khokhlov A.A. Kiryushin K.Y. Kiryushin Y.F. Kitov E.P. Kosintsev P. Kovtun I.V. Makarov N.P. Morozov V.V. Nikolaev E.N. Rykun M.P. Savenkova T.M. Shchelchkova M.V. Shirokov V. Skochina S.N. Sherstobitova O.S. Slepchenko S.M. Solodovnikov K.N. Solovyova E.N. Stepanov A.D. Timoshchenko A.A. Vdovin A.S. Vybornov A.V. Balanovska E.V. Dryomov S. Hellenthal G. Kidd K. Krause J. Starikovskaya E. Sukernik R. Tatarinova T. Thomas M.G. Zhabagin M. Callan K. Cheronet O. Fernandes D. Keating D. Candilio F. Iliev L. Kearns A. Özdoğan K.T. Mah M. Micco A. Michel M. Olalde I. Zalzala F. Mallick S. Rohland N. Pinhasi R. Narasimhan V.M. Reich D.
7 August 2025 Nature Research

Nature
2025 #644 Issue 8075 122 - 132 pp.

The North Eurasian forest and forest-steppe zones have sustained millennia of sociocultural connections among northern peoples, but much of their history is poorly understood. In particular, the genomic formation of populations that speak Uralic and Yeniseian languages today is unknown. Here, by generating genome-wide data for 180 ancient individuals spanning this region, we show that the Early-to-Mid-Holocene hunter-gatherers harboured a continuous gradient of ancestry from fully European-related in the Baltic, to fully East Asian-related in the Transbaikal. Contemporaneous groups in Northeast Siberia were off-gradient and descended from a population that was the primary source for Native Americans, which then mixed with populations of Inland East Asia and the Amur River Basin to produce two populations whose expansion coincided with the collapse of pre-Bronze Age population structure. Ancestry from the first population, Cis-Baikal Late Neolithic–Bronze Age (Cisbaikal_LNBA), is associated with Yeniseian-speaking groups and those that admixed with them, and ancestry from the second, Yakutia Late Neolithic–Bronze Age (Yakutia_LNBA), is associated with migrations of prehistoric Uralic speakers. We show that Yakutia_LNBA first dispersed westwards from the Lena River Basin around 4,000 years ago into the Altai-Sayan region and into West Siberian communities associated with Seima-Turbino metallurgy—a suite of advanced bronze casting techniques that expanded explosively from the Altai¹. The 16 Seima-Turbino period individuals were diverse in their ancestry, also harbouring DNA from Indo-Iranian-associated pastoralists and from a range of hunter-gatherer groups. Thus, both cultural transmission and migration were key to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon, which was involved in the initial spread of early Uralic-speaking communities.

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Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre CAS, České Budějovice, Czech Republic
Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, United States
Spatial Analysis, Interpretation, and Exploration Laboratory, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, United States
Department of Archaeology, Ethnography and Museology, Altai State University, Barnaul, Russian Federation
Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Historical, Ecological and Cultural Association ‘Povolzhye’, Samara, Russian Federation
Institute of Studies the Humanities and Problems of Indigenous People of the North, FIC Yakutsk Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yakutsk, Russian Federation
Diamond and Precious Metals Geology Institute, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yakutsk, Russian Federation
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Tyumen Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Problems of Northern Development, Tyumen, Russian Federation
Department of Archaeology of Central Asia and the Caucasus, Institute for the History of Material Culture of Russian Academy of Science, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education, Samara, Russian Federation
Department of Recreational Geography, Service, Tourism and Hospitality, Institute of Geography, Altai State University, Barnaul, Russian Federation
Center of Human Ecology, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russian Federation
Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation
Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation
Independent Researcher, Kemerovo, Russian Federation
Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation
LLC ‘Archaeology of the East European Plain’, Moscow, Russian Federation
National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russian Federation
V. F. Voino-Yasenetsky Krasnoyarsk State Medical University, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation
Institute of Natural Sciences, M. K. Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk, Russian Federation
Institute of History and Archaeology, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation
Siberian State University of Physical Education and Sport, Omsk, Russian Federation
Arctic Research Center of Sakha Republic, Yakutia, Russian Federation
Human Population Genetics Laboratory, Research Center for Medical Genetics, Moscow, Russian Federation
Laboratory of Human Molecular Genetics, Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SBRAS), Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London Genetics Institute (UGI), University College London, London, United Kingdom
Department of Genetics, Yale Medical School, New Haven, CT, United States
Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Department of Biology, University of La Verne, La Verne, CA, United States
Laboratory of Archaeogenetics, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
Laboratory of Human Genetics, National Center for Biotechnology, Astana, Kazakhstan
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
CIAS, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Servizio di Bioarcheologia, Museo delle Civiltà, Rome, Italy
Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, United States
BIOMICs Research Group, Department of Zoology and Animal Cell Biology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
Ikerbasque-Basque Foundation of Science, Bilbao, Spain
Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, TX, United States
Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of Texas, Austin, TX, United States

Department of Human Evolutionary Biology
Department of Biology and Ecology
Department of Genetics
Department of Anthropology
Institute of Parasitology
Department of Anthropology
Spatial Analysis
Department of Archaeology
Department of Historical Studies
Historical
Institute of Studies the Humanities and Problems of Indigenous People of the North
Diamond and Precious Metals Geology Institute
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography
Tyumen Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences
Department of Archaeology of Central Asia and the Caucasus
Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education
Department of Recreational Geography
Center of Human Ecology
Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology
Ural Federal University
Independent Researcher
Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local Lore
LLC ‘Archaeology of the East European Plain’
National Research Tomsk State University
V. F. Voino-Yasenetsky Krasnoyarsk State Medical University
Institute of Natural Sciences
Institute of History and Archaeology
Siberian State University of Physical Education and Sport
Arctic Research Center of Sakha Republic
Human Population Genetics Laboratory
Laboratory of Human Molecular Genetics
Department of Genetics
Department of Genetics
Department of Archaeogenetics
Department of Biology
Laboratory of Archaeogenetics
Laboratory of Human Genetics
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences
Department of Evolutionary Anthropology
CIAS
School of Archaeology
Servizio di Bioarcheologia
Utrecht University
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
BIOMICs Research Group
Ikerbasque-Basque Foundation of Science
Department of Integrative Biology
Department of Statistics and Data Science

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