The Altai, Siberian region is highly important for the demographic history of human species as crossroads for population movements between Siberia, Central and East Asia and North America.
In Ukok Plateau 1993 a young lady mummy in ice tombs area was found and reburied because Altaic insisted a respect for their ancestor. Altai is originated from nomad Pazyryk culture of BC 5C~ BC 3C.
The region is widely known as the place where an archaic hominin group the Denisovans, was first discovered. Denisovans are related Neanderthal. There is Altai Republic in Southern Siberia whose terrain encompasses the Altai Mountains and surrounding tundra, alpine meadows and thousands of lakes. Altaic people look like Mongolian, Koreans and American Natives.
New unique DNA pool links Prehistoric North Asian and North American
The unique DNA pool demonstrates that prehistoric North Asia and North America were an interwoven hove of migration.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/975756?
Previously unknown groups of people have been revealed to genetic analysis research thought to have hailed from Siberian in the last Ice Age, specifically modern day Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia. Korean is very close to Mongolian genetically.
It seems that they also had links to the pioneering groups of humans of that time period who journeyed to North America. However it seems that the migration was not only one way.
Some groups actually migrated back from North America to North Asia via the Bering Sea. The American legacy still lives on in some groups who live in Siberia to this day.
Scientists at the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology undertook analysis of the genomes of ten individuals who had lived in the Siberian region over 7,500 years ago, and they looked at the genetic makeups of Eurasian and Native American populations that exist to this very day.
Their data revealed that Altai hunter-gatherers had a unique gene pools that indicate they were descendants of two key groups that lived in this part of Eurasia at the time: the paleo-Siberian and the Ancient North Eurasian people(ANE).
Altai hunter-gatherer group, Eurasia and North Asia
The Altai hunter-gatherer group contributed to many contemporaneous and subsequent populations across North Asia, showing how great the mobility of those foraging communities was.
One of the individuals who hailed from Nizhnetytesken cave in Altai had Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry, demonstrating the ability of such lineage to spread a much farther physical distance than first thought.
Links were also discovered between Neolithic peoples in Far Eastern Russia, via Korea and Jomon hunters who lived in the Japanese islands. It proves that over 10,000 years ago Northern Asia, Southern Siberia and North America were all closely connected with each other in a migratory sense.
Ke Wang, a lead author of the study from Fudan University, China elaborated. The finding that surprised us the most is from an individual dated to a similar period as the other Altai hunter-gatherers but with a completely different genetic profile, showing genetic affinities to populations located in the Russian Far East.
Interestingly, the Nizhnetytesken individual was found in a cave containing rich burial goods with a religious costume and objects interpreted as possible representation of shamanism.
The grave goods appear different from other local archeological contexts implying mobility of both culturally and genetically diverse individuals into the Altai region.
From America back to Siberia
It was also fascinating to discover that the migration of people was two way in nature, over the course of a 5,000 years period.
Researchers are unable to agree when the first humans set foot in the Americas. Popular estimates seem to think the first arrived around 15,000 years ago, but there are some who argue that there may be some evidence to suggest that it goes further back till to over 30,000 years.
It is also fascinating to discover that some people in North Native American indicating that they had returned to Siberia from the Americas at some point in history.
This suggests that human migrations and admixtures were the norm and not the exception also fro ancient hunter-gatherer societies. The study is published in the journal Current Biology in January 2023. Source: eurekaalert
Genetically Altaic people, Mongolian, Korean and American natives are closer than any people, though some Altaic seem like a white. Korean language belongs to the Altaic family and in Korea there is still shamanism.
Altai Siberia region is very important to for the demographic history of human species as crossroads for population movements between Siberia, Central Asia, East Asia and North America.
