Mitochondrial DNA studies of the Pazyryk people (4th to 3rd centuries BC) from northwestern Mongolia
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Mitochondrial DNA studies of the Pazyryk people (4th to 3rd centuries BC) from northwestern Mongolia Aleksandr S. Pilipenko & Aida G. Romaschenko & Vyacheslav I. Molodin & Hermann Parzinger & Viktor F. Kobzev
Received: 8 March 2010 / Accepted: 6 July 2010 / Published online: 1 September 2010 # Springer-Verlag 2010
Abstract The discovery and excavations in 2006 by joint Russian–German–Mongolian expeditions of the Pazyryk culture burial sites (4th to 3rd centuries BC, Early Iron Age, the Scythian period) in the Altai mountains of northwestern Mongolia near the Russia border provided new material for studying various aspects of these ancient peoples lives, including human, animal and plant remains. Ice accumulation in the graves preserved the human remains, allowing biological analysis of the samples. We conducted a genetic study based on mitochondrial DNA from remains of three Pazyryk culture representatives to investigate the possible genetic relationships of this Siberian Scythian group with populations of adjacent territories. These data support The research was supported by grants from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (09-06-00357a 10-06-00406а), Russian Humanity Scientific Foundation (10-01-00193а) and Complex Interdisciplinary Project N 115 from Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
possible genetic contacts between populations of Altai and other Eurasia regions in the Early Iron Age, and are in good agreement with corresponding archaeological and anthropological data. However, a large-scale study of the Pazyryk population gene pool structure must be performed to further confirm these findings. Keywords Ancient DNA . Human mitochondrial DNA . Central Asia . Scythian . Iron age . Pazyryk culture Abbreviations mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA HVR Hyper-variable region RFLP Restriction fragments length polymorphism GuSCN Guanidinium thiocyanate OKG Olon-Kurin-Gol PCR Polymerase chain reaction rCRS Revised Cambridge Reference Sequence
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12520-010-0042-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. A. S. Pilipenko (*) : A. G. Romaschenko : V. F. Kobzev Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Akademika Lavrentieva 10, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia e-mail: [email protected] V. I. Molodin Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia H. Parzinger Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, von-der-Heydt-Str. 16-18, 10785 Berlin, Germany
Introduction In 2006, a joint Russian–German–Mongolian archaeological expedition excavated the sites of the Pazyryk culture (4th to 3rd centuries BC, Early Iron Age, the Scythian period) in northwestern Mongolia (Parzinger et al. 2008; Molodin et al. 2009). Excavations were carried out at two frozen grave sites belonging to the Pazyryk culture: burial mound 2 of the Olon-Kurin-Gol 6 (OKG-6) and burial mound 1 of the Olon-
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