Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46 (4) 2018   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.4.123-131

Annotation:  Ivory Figurines and the Symbolic Context of a Paleolithic Dwelling at Kovrizhka IV on the Lower Viti On the Interpretation of Stelae in the Cult Complexes of Northern Mesopotamia During the Pre-Pottery A Study of Finds from Excavation I at Suchu Island, the Lower Amur (the 1974 Field Season) Jade Artifacts from Bronze Age Cemeteries in the Cis-Olkhon Area, the Western Coast of Lake Baikal Sherubai-1: An Andronovo (Fedorovka) Cemetery in Central Kazakhstan Technologies Involved in Manufacturing Wooden Horns for the Ceremonial Masks of Horses from the Pazy On the Time and Context of the Earliest Bronze Mirrors in the Northern Pontic Region Procession of Horsemen on a Gold Plaque from the Siberian Collection of Peter I A Mongolian Era Female Headdress from the Upper Ob Basin Ancient Irrigated Soils of the Bozok Archaeological District, Northern Kazakhstan (11th to 12th Cent Chthonic Animals in the Traditional Buryat Culture Reconstruction of Wooden and Earthen Buildings in 17th to 18th-Century Russian Forts in Siberia: The Application of the Blue-Intensity Method for Dating Wooden Buildings in Siberia The Eastern Slavic Population of Central Asia After the Collapse of the USSR: Ethno-Demographic Proc An Unusual Burial of a Xiongnu-Sarmatian Era Warrior in the Western Siberian Forest-Steppe: Results Armed Violence Among the Altai Mountains Pastoralists of the Xiongnu-Sarmatian Age “Abandoned, Tied, Flexed”: An Anthropological Study of an Unusual Late Sarmatian Burial in the South   

An Unusual Burial of a Xiongnu-Sarmatian Era Warrior
in the Western Siberian Forest-Steppe:
Results of a Paleogenetic Analysis

A.S. Pilipenko^1–3, S.V. Cherdantsev^{1, 2}, R.O. Trapezov^{1, 2}, T.A. Chikisheva², D.V. Pozdnyakov^{1, 2}, and V.I. Molodin^{2, 3}

¹Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 10, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

³Novosibirsk State University, Pirogova 1, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

This article presents the results of a paleogenetic study of the skeletal remains of a male from burial 688 at Sopka-2, in the Baraba forest-steppe. The artifacts, the burial rite, and the man’s Central Asian Mongoloid physical type unambiguously indicate a foreigner. We analyzed the uniparental markers, such as mitochondrial DNA (HVR I sequence, and informative positions in the coding part of mtDNA) and Y-chromosome (allelic profile of 17 STR-loci). The male’s mtDNA belongs to the East Eurasian haplogroup D4b1, and his Y-chromosome haplogroup Q (Q1a) is likewise East Eurasian. Thus, the individual’s eastern origin has been established, consistent with his physical type. The phylogeographic analysis, using data on ancient and modern populations of Eurasia, revealed the presence of the East Eurasian D4b1-haplogroup both in the eastern and western Eurasian steppes. Importantly, it was present in Scythians of the Northern Pontic area. Genetic data, then, do not allow us to locate the region whence the individual had migrated to Baraba. We propose a scenario that explains the disagreement between the paleogenetic and the craniometrical evidence, indicating eastern origin, on the one hand, and the predominantly western (Sarmato-Alanian) parallels to the grave goods, on the other. We discuss the possibilities and limitations of the paleogenetic approach to reconstructing the origins of ancient individuals.

Keywords: Mitochondrial DNA, STR-markers, Y-chromosome, Xiongnu-Sarmatian era, Western Siberia, Eurasian steppe belt, migrations