Y chromosome microsatellite haplotypes and the history of Samoyed-speaking populations in north-west Siberia

• Main Authors: Karafet, T, Osipova, L P, Posukh, O L, Wiebe, V, Hammer, M F
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 1999
• Subjects: The ''Y''; Yenisey; Evenks; samoyed*; Tundra; yenisey river; Siberia
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198504085.003.0019; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52427785/isbn-9780198504085-book-part-19.pdf

Abstract We employed a set of five microsatellites and five biallelic polymorphic sites mapping to the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome to (1) investigate the paternal relationships among linguistically related populations from western Siberia, and (2) assess the relative utility of these two marker systems for inferring the structure of recently diverged populations. The surveyed populations included three Samoyed-speaking groups (Selkups, Forest Nentsi, and Tundra Nentsi) from nine villages along the Pur, Taz, and Yenisey River basins, three non-Samoyed-speaking populations (Komi, Kets, and Evenks) inhabiting the same villages, and a sample of Altais from south-western Siberia (the hypothesized territory of ancient Samoyeds). We found that genetic and linguistic patterns were not entirely concordant. In particular, the Selkups were very different from the Tundra Nentsi and Forest Nentsi, and contained a considerable paternal component from southern populations. Separate analyses of the different marker systems allowed us to infer that a small set of microsatellites was more useful than the same number of biallelic sites for resolving relationships among closely related populations. By combining information from both marker systems we obtained higher resolution haplotype networks and more consistent clustering of Samoyed sub-populations.