Turkic Migrations

The Turkic Migrations were the greatest population movement before Colombus.  Throughout the Middle Ages, Turkic speaking nomads conquered and settled across Central Asia and Anatolia – assimilating some, replacing others. Once slave-soldiers, they came to rule the Muslim world.

Today there are seven Turkic nations, ordered by population:

• Turkey
• Azerbaijan
• Uzbekistan
• Kazakhstan
• Turkmenistan
• Kyrgyzstan

Significant minorities also live in Russia and China.

The Turks originated in the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia. Their name comes from the Chinese Tujue, meaning combat helmet, after a hill where they once lived. The early Turks were horse nomads and raiders who wrote in a runic script, worshipped the sky and worked iron.

The Gokturk Khaganate (Celestial Turks) ruled the Asian Steppe from 552-744. Under the Gokturks a common Turkic identity was born and when the confederation fell, Turkic peoples migrated in all directions, intermarrying with and absorbing native peoples where they went. Accordingly, the wider Turkic ethnicity encompasses a range of peoples and appearances.

Their migratory waves are reflected through language.

Speakers of the Oghur branch were the first Turks to migrate west (unless counting the Huns, who may have been Turkic). They included the Khazars, Bulgars and Chuvash. The Khazars, who converted to Judaism, ruled Ukraine from 648 – 1048. The Bulgars forged an empire in the Balkans, became Orthodox Christians and assimilated with their Slavic subjects. Only Chuvash in Russia is still spoken. In the Oghur languages, the common ‘z’ suffix becomes ‘r’: both ‘Oghur’ and ‘Oghuz’ mean tribe.

The Kipchak Branch is named after the Kipchak Confederation (1067-1271) of southern Russia. They fought against, then for the Mongols when they invaded, from whom many descend. Most were Muslim by the 1300s and, of all the Turks, stayed nomads the longest. They include the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tatars and Bashkirs.

The Siberian Branch migrated northward before the rise of the Gokturks and mingled with the indigenous forest people. They traditionally herded reindeer and bred cattle and ponies to withstand Siberian winters. Today they mix Turkic shamanism with ‘modern’ religions – Christianity for the Yakuts and Buddhism for the Tuvans.  

The Southeastern Branch includes Uzbek and Uyghur.  The Uyghurs of Mongolia overthrew the eastern Gokturks and in the 800s, migrated to western China. They settled down, adopted agriculture, a written script and Manichaeism. They were Buddhist for a time then Muslim.  The Uzbeks settled the oasis cities of Central Asia as soldiers in the Mongol Horde, ruling until the Russians came.

The Oghuz of Central Asia were heirs to the Gokturks. After converting to Islam, Oghuz Turks served as slaves, mercenaries and bodyguards for Persian and Arab lords. So reliant did the caliph in Baghdad become on his Turkic generals, that by the 900s, the Seljuk tribe was the power behind the throne.

In 1071 a Seljuk army defeated the Byzantines at Manzikert and seized Anatolia.  Turkic tribes flooded the region and over time native Greeks and Armenians adopted Islam and the Turkish language. The remainder were killed or expelled in the early 20^th century. The modern Turkish are genetically closer to Greeks and Armenians than other Turkic people: only 15-20% of their ancestry being Central Asian. Azeri, Turkish and Turkmen belong to the Oghuz Branch.

Turkic migrations. Sakha – Yakut, Cuman- Kipchak.

Sources: The Diplomat, Khazaria.com, Science on the Web, Wikipedia

See Also:

• Science on the Web – The Proto-Turkic Urheimat & The Early Migrations of Turkic Peoples
• Wikipedia – List of Turkic dynasties and countries
• Steppe People
• Crimean Tatars
• Turanism
• Manichaeism
• Other Migrations
  • The Southern Dispersal
  • Southeast Asian Migrations
  • Polynesian Migrations

The Southern Dispersal

The Southern Dispersal, also called the Great Coastal Migration, was the first major migration Out of Africa.  50,000 – 100,000 years ago a single band of Homo Sapiens crossed the Bab-el Mandeb Straits to Asia. Over multiple generations their children migrated across the Indian Ocean coastline until they reached Australia and beyond.  Their direct descendants form the ancient populations of Oceania and Southeast Asia.

Ice Age sea levels were 77 meters lower than today. Glaciers and pack ice trapped much of the world’s water and what are now shallow seas was then dry land. A land bridge closed the mouth of the Red Sea, Borneo, Java and Sumatra were joined to Indochina as the land of Sunda, and New Guinea and Australia formed a single continent called Sahul.  Though foreign to Homo Sapiens, Eurasia was already home to other human species like Neanderthals, Homo Erectus and Denisovans.

Archaeological sites and fossils give a rough idea of when Homo Sapiens were first living in a particular place.

• 85,000 BC – Yemen (Al Wusta site)
• 75,000 BC – Southern India (Jwalapuram Site)
• 70,000 BC – Phillipines (Callao Man)
• 44,000 BC – Australia (Lake Mungo remains)

Why the coast? The pioneers of the Southern Dispersal were beachcombers. Deliberately avoiding the colder northern climes, they followed the coast where shellfish and tropical fruit were plentiful and there was no competition from Neanderthals. Due to the scant number of archaeological records, their numbers were likely small. The ancestral band who crossed the Red Sea like Moses was probably no more than 160 individuals.

The later ‘Northern Dispersal’, which gave rise to the Eurasian peoples, either branched off  early from the Southern Dispersal or was a later migration from Africa. They expanded north as the ice caps melted.

Today direct descendants of the Southern Dispersal include:

• India: Andaman Islanders (Onge, Jarawa, Sentinelese), Dravidians?
• Sri Lanka: Vedda
• Malaysia: Semang and Senoi
• Philippines: Aeta, Ati and Manamwa
• Thailand: Maniq
• Melanesia: Papuans, Solomon Islanders, Fijians, Vanuatuans, Kanaks
• Australia: Australian Aborigines, Torres Strait Islanders

Jarawa girls, Andaman Islands

Senoi children, Malaysia

Aeta man, Philippines

Women from Bougainville, Papua New Guinea

Korowai man and child, West Papua

Children from the Solomon Islands. Blonde hair sometimes shows in children, though the associated gene is different from the European one.

Arunda Aboriginal man, Australia

Though diverse in their own right, descendants of the Southern Dispersal stand out from later arrivals by their dark features and woolly hair (though not for Aborigines). Unlike most Eurasians, they maintained high levels of melanin because they never left the tropics. In Southeast Asia and the Andaman Islands they are called Negritos, owing to their black skin and short stature.  Rising sea levels and new migrations have forced them into isolation, where many still live as hunter-gatherers.

Humans arrived in Sahul by boat. The migrants spread across the continent and hunted Australia’s megafauna to extinction. By the time outsiders arrived tens of thousands of years later, there were at least 600 distinct Aboriginal groups, each with their own language. Despite being only 1.5% of the world’s population, Melanesia is home to 20% of its languages.

Like all non-Africans, ‘Australo-Melanesians’ have 1% Neanderthal ancestry (though less than Europeans).  Unique to them however, is the 4-5% DNA they inherit from another species – the mysterious Denisovans. Interbreeding must have occurred in Southeast Asia, as the Andamanese lack Denisovan admixture. Aside from genetics, all the Denisovans have left us is a fingerbone and a skull.

Sources: New Scientist, Smithsonian Magazine, Nicholas Wade – Before the Dawn

See Also:

• Population Y
• Polynesian Migrations
• The Sentinelese
• Southeast Asian Migrations
• Taiwanese Negritos

Population Y

Population Y is a proposed ‘ghost population’ who may have inhabited South America before Palaeo-Indians crossed the Bering Landbridge 15,000 years ago. Unlike Native Americans, whose ancestors came from Siberia, Population Y was more closely related to Melanesians and Australian Aborigines. Slim evidence lies in ancient bones and modern DNA.

The prevailing narrative is Native Americans share a common origin. 15,000 years ago humans from Siberia crossed a land bridge spanning the Bering Strait. As the Ice Sheets melted, their descendants dispersed across the continent and became the indigenous peoples of America – everyone from the Incas to the Algonquin. In 2012 Harvard scientists sequenced genomes from 52 indigenous groups and concluded they shared common DNA with this founder group – represented in the mDNA haplogroups A, C, D and N.

However they may not have been the first.

In 1973 scientists discovered a 13,000 year-old skeleton in a cave at Lagoa Santa, Brazil. The ‘Luzia Woman’ was the oldest human remains found in the Western Hemisphere. Curiously the Luzia woman’s skull resembled an Australian Aborigine more than a Native American. The Laranjal and Moraes skeletons of Lagoa Santa shared this trait. The Lagoa Santa people’s closest Amerindian relatives are the Yaghan of Tierra Del Fuego and the extinct Pericue of Baja California. 

Some Amerindians carry DNA from Population Y. In 2015 scientists sequenced the genome of three Amazonian tribes – the Xavante (pictured), Karitiana and Surui, who were uncontacted until the 20^th century. 1-2% of their DNA was shared with Australasians. Smaller amounts were also found in Mixe people of Mexico and Aleutian Islanders but no other groups. The findings were published in Nature. Population Y comes from Ypykuera – an Amazonian word for ‘ancestor’.

Less reliable evidence of a Proto-Australasian presence in the Americas:

1. Similarities between the rock paintings of Lagoa Santa and Australia
2. Similarities between Fuegian and Aboriginal Australian body painting
3. Acute eyesight of Fuegians and Aborigines
4. Black facial features of the Olmec colossal heads

Proto-Australasians or ‘Black Asians’ were the first homo sapiens to leave Africa and the original inhabitants of Australia and Southeast Asia. Their descendants include the Aborigines of Australia, the Negritos of Southeast Asia, Melanesians, and Andaman Islanders. Population Y would suggest they reached South America too.

There are five possibilities:

1. Early humans crossed the Atlantic from Africa
2. Proto-Australasians sailed the Pacific from Australia to South America
3. Proto-Australasians island-hopped the Pacific via the Antarctic (Rivet)
4. Proto-Australasians crossed the Bering land bridge before the first Amerindians (Neves)
5. Proto-Australasians island-hopped from Asia via the Kuril and Aleutian islands

Theories 4 and 5 are the most credible. Although Australasians made it to Australia, there is little evidence their boats could traverse the Pacific. If Aboriginal Australians did not settle the Polynesian islands, how could they have sailed to South America?

Proto-Australasian settlement of the Americas is an exciting, if controversial, prospect but alas probably not true. As evidence, only the 2015 Nature study holds sway. In 2018 scientists sequenced Luzia woman’s DNA and found no traces of Proto-Australasian ancestry. Her distinct skull structure was the product of genetic drift. Similarly, no trace of Population Y has been found in the Yaghan or Pericue – at least not yet.  Until further evidence arises, the most likely scenario is the first bands to settle America had an Australasian component in their DNA.

Sources: Anthrosource, Harvard.edu, National Geographic, Nature, NCBI, New Daily, The Scientist, Science, Science Daily, Smithsonian Magazine

See Also:

• Nature – Genetic Evidence for Two Founding Popuations of the Americas
• Nature – Ghost Population Hints at Long Lost Migration to the Americas
• The Scientist – The First Amerindians
• DS Davidson – The Quest of Relationship Between the Cultures of Australia and Tierra Del Fuego
• Fuegians
• The Sentinelese
• The Southern Dispersal
• The Historical Context of Cheddar Man

Southeast Asian Migrations

The people of the Indochinese Peninsular (Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) descend from four principle migrations. Each has contributed to the languages, cultures and genetic makeup of the region today.

It is uncertain who the original inhabitants of Southeast Asia were or the languages they spoke. Homo Erectus and the mysterious Denisovans lived there in prehistoric times, with the first Homo Sapiens arriving 50,000 years ago. They were likely ‘Negrito’ hunter-gatherers; far shorter, darker-skinned and curly-haired than most Southeast Asians today.  According to genetic sequencing, Indochina’s ancient inhabitants were related to Andaman Islanders, the Semang of Malaysia and the Ainu of Japan.

Austroasiatic speaking farmers migrated from the north around 2,000 BC and introduced wet rice cultivation and bronze tools.  They were part of a population boom from the birth of agriculture in China. More numerous and better organised, they replaced the indigenous population and spread throughout the region as far as East India and Malaysia. Indian traders strongly influenced the Mon and Khmer, who adopted Theravada Buddhism and Indic scripts. Austroasiatic farmers in the Red River Delta, who were more influenced by China, would become the Vietnamese.

The Tai-Kadai family includes Thai, Lao and Shan Burmese. Rice farmers from southern China, they migrated to the highlands of Indochina in the 8^th century under pressure from the Chinese Tang Dynasty. The Tai-Kadai built cities, assimilated local Austroasiatic people and adopted their Buddhist customs and scripts. Some Tai-Kadai speaking tribes, like the Zhuang and Tai-Lue, remain in southern China.

Sino-Tibetan speaking migrants entered Burma at the same time. Foremost were the Bamar (Burmese), renowned horsemen who settled the fertile Irrawaddy valley and forced other groups like the Karen, who arrived in the 6^th century, and the Mon into the mountains.  The Bamar founded the powerful kingdom of Bagan (pictured) and still dominate the region today.

Austronesian speakers related to Malays and Filipinos founded the kingdom of Champa in southern Vietnam. First Hindu, then Muslim, it lasted over a thousand years until its conquest by the Vietnamese in the 18^th century. The Cham are now a minority in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Hmong-Mien is another language family from China, possibly the original inhabitants of the Yellow River Valley. Today, their 6 million speakers are scattered across the mountains of China, Vietnam and Laos. The Hmong, who migrated to Southeast Asia in the 1800s, are the largest group.

Modern Southeast Asians have a diverse heritage.  Most have varying degrees of ancestry from the different migrant groups, with significant Han Chinese contribution in Thailand and Vietnam.   The 300 Maniq people of southern Thailand, who speak an Austroasiatic language, are the only remaining Negrito group.

Sources: Ethnologue, Genome Biol Evol, Jared Diamond –  Guns, Germs and Steel, Science Daily, Southeast Asian Archaeology

See Also:

• Ainu
• Andaman Islanders
• Polynesian Migrations
• The Southern Dispersal
• Thailand
• Ruc

Polynesian Migrations

The Polynesian Migrations (1200 BC-AD 1250) brought mankind to the far-flung islands of the Pacific Ocean, the last part of the world to be inhabited bar Antarctica.

Polynesia (Greek for ‘many islands’) is the easternmost region of the South Pacific. It lies west of Melanesia (‘black islands’) and Micronesia (‘tiny islands). While humans lived in Melanesia since the Stone Age, Micronesia and Polynesia were not settled until the second millennium BC, by speakers of the Austronesian language family.

There are over a thousand islands in Polynesia, ranging from shallow atolls to large volcanic islands.  Because of the varying size, climate and distance between these islands a variety of societies emerged, sharing a common heritage.

The Polynesians descend from the Lapita culture, a branch of the Austronesian family who lived on the islands around Papua New Guinea. Renowned for their pottery, the Lapita were distant cousins of other Austronesian peoples like the Malays and Indonesians. The Polynesian gene pool is 80% Austronesian and 20% Melanesian.

From 1200 BC Lapita seafarers sailed eastward in hardy outrigger canoes, using the sun and night sky for navigation. Over two thousand years they settled the islands of the South Pacific, introducing chickens, pigs, dogs, yams, taro (a root crop) and breadfruit where they went.

Polynesian Settlements

• 1200 BC – Fiji, Tonga
• 1000 BC – Samoa
• 400 – Hawaiian Islands
• 500 – Tahiti, Marquesas
• 800 – Easter Island
• 1000 – Cook Islands
• 1250 – New Zealand

In isolated Easter Island (Rapa Nui) settlers sculpted over 8000 moai out of volcanic rock. The tallest statue was 9 metres high. By European arrival, however, the Easter Islanders had felled the island’s forests and had no wood in which to build canoes and escape.

In Hawaii, the largest of the Polynesian archipelagos, a complex society developed. The Hawaiians built irrigation systems and fish farms that supported sizeable populations. Kingdoms formed on the largest islands with a rigid caste system of hereditary chiefs, priests, labourers and slaves.

From 950 onwards the paramount chiefs of Tonga built a multi-island empire of 40,000 people spanning as far as Fiji and the Marquesas. The Tongans facilitated trade and tribute across islands up to 500 kilometres apart. Canoes of 150 warriors kept the peace.

The last landmass Polynesians settled was New Zealand, which was far larger and colder than the tropical Pacific Islands. These settlers became the Māori, a society of craftsmen and warriors living in fortified villages. By European contact in 1642, there were over 100,000 people in New Zealand.

Polynesians may have reached the South American mainland by AD 1000. The sweet potato, a staple Polynesian crop found as far west as New Guinea, originated in the Andes Mountains while coconuts, foreign to the New World, were found in Panama by 1500. There is speculation as to how much contact Polynesians had with the local inhabitants. Although it was far closer, the ancient Polynesians never set foot in Australia.

Polynesians believed in a spiritual force called mana, wielded by prestigious chiefs and noblemen. The culture hero Maui was central to their mythos. According to legend he tamed the sun, drew the islands of Hawaii and fished the North Island of New Zealand out from the sea.

As seafarers, the Polynesians were unsurpassed until Spanish and Portuguese galleons sailed the world centuries later. Today Polynesians are the majority in most of the islands except Hawaii and New Zealand, which are colder and now support large European-descended populations. Were it not for colonial meddling in the 18^th century, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji would likely be the same country today.

See Also:

• Southeast Asian Migrations
• The Southern Dispersal
• Taiwanese Aborigines
• Māori Mythology

The Historical Context of Cheddar Man

The Cheddar Man is the oldest complete human skeleton found in Britain.  He died a violent death around 7150 BC in Gough’s Cave in Chedder Gorge, Somerset, where his remains were uncovered in 1903. Cheddar Man made headlines when the latest forensic reconstruction from London’s Natural History Museum depicted him as dark skinned, a surprising revelation some criticised as politically motivated.

What we know:

• Cheddar Man was not the first Briton: human fossils have been found in Gough’s cave predating Cheddar Man by 5,000 years. However, these early inhabitants did not survive the ice age and bear no relation to either Cheddar Man or modern Britons.
• He was young, most likely in his mid-20s.
• Cheddar Man belonged to mitochondrial haplogroup U5 (from the female line), a genome found mainly in Finns and Laplanders today.
• His Y chromosomal haplogroup was I2A2.
• He was 5’4 tall.
• He was lactose intolerant.
• According to the latest genome sequencing, Cheddar Man had blue eyes, ‘dark to black’ skin and curly, black hair.

Cheddar Man belonged to a wave of ‘Mesolithic’ (Middle Stone Age) settlers, blue-eyed hunters-gatherers who crossed to Britain by land as the ice sheets retreated.  Typical of hunter-gatherers, their numbers were small; probably only 12,000 in Cheddar Man’s time. They are not the main ancestors of modern Britain.

Europe in Cheddar Man’s time

In the Neolithic Era (New Stone Age), lighter-skinned, brown-eyed farmers of Middle Eastern origin settled across Europe, introducing livestock herding, grains and a milk-based diet. They interbred with and ultimately replaced, the smaller indigenous population. In Britain, they constructed Stonehenge and Skara Brae. Neolithic farmer ancestry is strongest in Sardinians today.

A third wave settled in Britain during the mid-Bronze Age, 5,000 years after Cheddar Man’s time. The demographic transformation is evidenced by the spread of Bell Breaker pottery around the time and the replacement of stone monoliths with humbler burial mounds. The ‘Bell Beakers’ were part of a larger migration of Indo-European speakers across Europe and South Asia. They introduced horses, bronze weaponry and the Y chromosomal haplogroup R1-B, which was not present in Western Europeans before but dominates today. More numerous, they engulfed the earlier populations and left a stronger genetic imprint. They were the progenitors of the ancient Celts.

Modern European Y chromosomal haplogroups

Further, better-known migrations of the Anglo Saxons and Norse followed in the Middle Ages. Disproportionate to their cultural influence, the Roman and Norman invasions had little impact on Britain’s genetic makeup.

In a recent article published by the ‘New Scientist’, published on the 21st February 2018, geneticist Susan Walsh, who worked on Cheddar Man project, admitted the data on Cheddar Man’s skin colour is not conclusive.

“It’s not a simple statement of ‘this person was dark-skinned’, it is his most probable profile, based on current research.”

The article further stipulates that recent genetic research on indigenous populations in Southern Africa by Brenna Henn of Stony Brook University demonstrated substantial variations in skin colour among individuals with similar genotypes. Like the colour of dinosaurs, discerning Cheddar Man’s complexion is educated guesswork.

Despite this, scientists have speculated Mesolithic Europeans were dark-skinned for some time. The genes for blue eyes evolved before the genes which determine light skin and blond hair. The Spanish LaBrana man (pictured right), a contemporary of Cheddar Man, exhibited similar traits.

Britain’s Mesolithic population, of which Cheddar Man belonged, were healthy and ate mainly fish, which is rich in vitamin D. Europeans evolved light skin to extract more vitamin D from the sun, so when excessive sunlight or a high seafood diet makes it abundant, these genes do not develop. This is why the Inuit maintain dark skin despite living in the boreal extremes of North America.

Originating from Anatolia and the steppes of southern Russia respectively, and eating milk products and bread over seafood, the Neolithic farmers and Bell Beaker people were lighter-skinned than Cheddar Man’s ilk. It is normal for dark-skinned people to develop lighter skin after millennia in cold European climates too, as did Ashkenazi Jews.

Today 10% of British DNA traces back to the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers like Cheddar Man, roughly 10% from Neolithic farmers and the rest, perhaps even up to 90%, from the Bell Beakers and later immigrants.

Genetics is a dynamic discipline. New technology, discoveries and research are constantly introducing new evidence and debunking the old. Yes, media coverage of the Cheddar Man was sensationalist, but that is their nature.

It is important to remember these migrations occurred over centuries, with interbreeding always occurring. What information we can discern from a handful of fossilised cavemen remains a murky glimpse to a long lost past.

Note: Studies on prehistoric migrations and genomes is convoluted but fascinating. I’ve linked some resources for further reading. The Eupedia and Nature posts are particularly detailed.

Sources: Nature, National Geographic, New Scientist, Eupedia, BBC, The Guardian, Abroad in the Yard

See Also:

• BBC: Ancient Britons ‘Replaced’ by Newcomers
• Nature: Ancient European genomes reveal jumbled ancestry
• Nature: The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe
• New Scientist: Ancient ‘dark-skinned’ Briton Cheddar Man find may not be true
• Eupedia: Genetic history of the British Isles
• The Tarim Mummies
• Inuit