Population history of indigenous peoples of Siberia: integrating of anthropological and genetic data

The paper is focused on population history of indigenous groups of Siberia and Russian Far East. By means of multivariate statistics we compared and integrated genetic (single-nucleotide polymorphism) and morphologic cranial metric (14 traits), cranial nonmetric (6 traits) and dental (10 traits) data on different Northern Eurasian modern groups. Analysis consisted of two stages. On the first stage we analyzed different systems of traits separately using principal component analysis for nonmetric traits and canonical variate analysis for metrical characteristics. After that, the results of nonmetric and metric analyses were combined by regarding PCs and two CVs as new traits and subjecting them to new PC analysis. The resulting integral principal components minimize the statistical errors inherent in the analysis of single systems. Basically we found high level of correspondence between morphologic and genetic data. For the first vectors which divide European and Asian groups correlation coefficients between genetic and morphologic data are between 0.89-0.95 (p<0.05) and even higher when integrated morphologic data was used (r=0.97). Second vectors which reveals specificity of several Ura-lian-speaking groups are also correlated (r=0.79 for genetics and cranial metric, r=-0.61 for genetics and cranial metric). The results of analyses reveal close biological affinities of such Siberian and European Uralic-speaking groups as Mansi, Selkups and Sami. This finding favor more to the V.Bunak hypothesis of single origin of Uralic-speaking peoples suggesting that they have descended from an ancestral proto-Uralian population then to hybridization hypothesis of G.Debets who proposed that Uralians resulted of prolonged and extensive hybridization between various European and Asian populations. Our results also confirm that part of the ancestors of Tubalars as well as the Yukaghirs also belonged to the proto-Uralic community. We can suggest that modern Yukaghirs resulted from admixture of their Uralian ancestors with some groups of Tungus-Manchurians and Chukchi. Aleuts display high level of genetic and morphologic specificity differentiating them from other Arctic groups of Chukchi and Eskimos suggesting their different origin.

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