In addition, Mongolized
Soyots live in Buryatia. Their population is 3600 people. Soyots are one of the
indigenous minority peoples of Russia. They are descendants of Turkified Samoyeds. At the same time, a number of orientalists (
Zhukovskaia,[4] Nanzatov,[5] Baldaev[6] and others) consider modern Soyots as a sub-ethnos within the
Buryat people: "... here the ethnic composition of the population was formed, which remains relatively stable to this day - Bulagats, Khongodors, Soyots, who (some earlier, others later) became subethnic groups of the Buryats."[4]
Ethnic groups of Mongolian origin
A large Mongolian component took part in the ethnic formation of the
Hazaras.[7] The high frequency of haplogroup
C2-M217 is consistent with the purported Mongolian origin of many of the Hazaras.[8] Modern Hazaras speak
Hazaragi, one of the dialects of the
Dari/
Persian language.
The
Mughals, descendants of the
Barlas and other Mongol tribes, currently speak
Urdu.[9]
Mongolian shamanism, more broadly called the Mongolian folk religion, or occasionally Tengerism, as refers to the
animistic and
shamanic indigenous religion that has been practiced in Mongolia and its surrounding areas (including
Buryatia and
Inner Mongolia), as well as among
Daur and other peoples, at least since the age of
recorded history. In the earliest known stages, it was intricately tied to all other aspects of social life and to the tribal organization of Mongolian society. Along the way, it has become influenced by and mingled with Buddhism.[15] Tengrism was transformed into a
monotheistic religion only at the imperial level within aristocratic circles.[16]
The
Culture of Mongolia has been heavily influenced by the
Mongolnomadic way of life and shows similarities to other
East Asian and
Central Asian cultures. The various Mongolic ethnic groups share a highly similar culture and traditions, but have specific differences in clothing styles and cuisine. Although Mongolian traditional clothing (
deel) has changed little since the days of the empire, there have been some changes in styles which distinguish modern Mongolian dress from historic costume. Each tribe or clan has its own deel design distinguished by cut, color, and trimming.
Mongolian cuisine is primarily based on
meat and dairy, with some regional variations. The most important public festivals are the
Naadam. A Naadam involves
horse racing,
wrestling, and
archery competitions. For families, the most important festival is
Tsagaan Sar (Lunar New Year), which is roughly equivalent to the
Chinese New Year and usually falls into January or February. Mongolia has a very old musical tradition. Key traditional elements are
throat-singing, the
Morin Khuur (horse head fiddle) and other string instruments, and several types of songs. Mongolian melodies are typically characterized by pentatonic harmonies and long end notes.
Origin
The ethnogenesis of Mongolic peoples is largely linked with the expansion of
Ancient Northeast Asians. They subsequently came into contact with other groups, notably
Sinitic peoples to their South and
Western Steppe Herders to their far West. The Mongolians pastoralist lifestyle, may in part be derived from the Western Steppe Herders, but without much geneflow between these two groups, suggesting cultural transmission.[17][18]
Genetics
Mongols and other Mongolic-speaking groups, show high genetic affinity to each other, followed by genetic proximity to
Central and
East/Southeast Asian peoples. The analysis of 175 Mongolic samples, representing 6 ethnic groups, incorporating results of the 1000 Genomes Project panel, revealed genetic homogeneity between different Mongolic groups, and that Northeast, East, and Southeast Asian populations are closer to each other than to other Eurasian populations.[2]
Maternal lineages
Mongolic peoples maternal lineages are primarily shared with East Asians (54%) and Southeast Asians (28%), while around 14% are shared with Europeans and other West Eurasian populations. The remaining 4% are distributed throughout Eurasia and not associated with a specific group.[19]
A study based on
mtDNA noted that ancient populations in Mongolia had a mixed West and East Eurasian origin, while modern Mongolians are characterized by substantially less West Eurasian maternal ancestry. It is suggested that many West Eurasian
mtDNA haplogroups in modern Mongolians are believed to have arrived around 2,500-5,000 years ago, or the Mongolian Bronze Age. A smaller number arrived in the early Iron Age.[20] Research by Rogers, et al. provides evidence that some West Eurasian maternal lineages had made it to Mongolia east of the Altai mountains prior to the Bronze Age.[21][22] During the medieval period, a continuous increase in
East Asian mitochondrial lineages was detected, which these authors attribute to Genghis Khan's
Pax Mongolica.[23]
Paternal lineages
An analysis of the paternal genetic diversity of Mongolians (n=95 from
Ulaangom, n=100 from
Dalandzadgad, n=97 from
Ulaanbaatar, n=84 from
Undurkhaan, n=117 from
Choibalsan) performed by Toshimichi Yamamoto et alii at the Department of Legal Medicine and Bioethics, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, Japan revealed a mean frequency of 59.0%
Haplogroup C-M217 (49.5% Ulaanbaatar, 57.1% Undurkhaan, 59.0% Choibalsan, 61.0% Dalandzadgad, 68.4% Ulaangom), 13.9%
Haplogroup O-M175 (4.2% Ulaangom, 11.0% Dalandzadgad, 13.1% Undurkhaan, 15.4% Choibalsan, 25.8% Ulaanbaatar), 11.3%
Haplogroup N-M231 (8.2% Ulaanbaatar, 8.4% Ulaangom, 10.3% Choibalsan, 14.0% Dalandzadgad, 15.5% Undurkhaan), 6.2%
Haplogroup R (3.1% Ulaanbaatar, 3.4% Choibalsan, 3.6% Undurkhaan, 7.0% Dalandzadgad, 13.7% Ulaangom), 3.5%
Haplogroup D-M174 (1.1% Ulaangom, 3.4% Choibalsan, 4.0% Dalandzadgad, 4.1% Ulaanbaatar, 4.8% Undurkhaan), and 2.8%
Haplogroup Q1b (2.0% Dalandzadgad, 2.4% Undurkhaan, 3.1% Ulaanbaatar, 3.2% Ulaangom, 3.4% Choibalsan).[24] The authors noted that "at least 4 major male ancestors with Y-hg-C3 have affected the gene pool of Mongolian males at the different periods," producing star-like clusters of Y-STR haplotypes.[24] Most numerous on average are the members of C3*: 11.6% Ulaangom, 14.4% Ulaanbaatar, 28.6% Undurkhaan, 29.9% Choibalsan, 48.0% Dalandzadgad. Second most numerous on average are the members of
Haplogroup C3c: 2.0% Dalandzadgad, 16.7% Undurkhaan, 17.1% Choibalsan, 23.7% Ulaanbaatar, 53.7% Ulaangom. Third most numerous on average are the members of Haplogroup C3d i.e. C-M407: 3.2% Ulaangom, 8.0% Dalandzadgad, 8.5% Choibalsan, 10.7% Undurkhaan, 11.3% Ulaanbaatar.
A study based on
ancient DNA and
Y-DNA found that ancient populations in the region of modern-day Mongolia had a mixed West and East Eurasian origin during the
Xiongnu period. Male-mediated
Western Steppe Herders ancestry increased by the establishment of
Türkic and Uyghur rule in Mongolia, which was accompanied by an increase in the West Eurasian haplogroups R and J.[25] There was a male-mediated rise in East Asian ancestry in the late medieval Mongolian period, paralleling the increase of haplogroup C2b.[26]
Autosomal DNA
Autosomal genetic data on geographically different Mongolic populations found that they are best modeled as a mixture of Ancient Northeast Asian-like (ANA) and 10% to 25% East Asian Yellow River Farmer ancestry sources(increase in Khorchins in Inner Mongolia around 62%), with only minor Western Eurasian genetic contributions. Mongolic-speaking groups were found to share a common genetic heritage, and also showed high affinity to ancient and medieval Mongolian samples, suggesting genetic continuity with the
Slab Grave Culture.[3] Western derived ancestry makes up roughly 5.6—11.6%, primarily from
Western Steppe Herders (WSH).[18][b]
Mongolic peoples display genetic continuity to the
Devil’s Gate Cave specimen (7,000 BCE) and the Amur13K specimen (13,000 BCE). The Neolithic Northeast Asian ancestry, is shared with other "putative
Altaic-speaking peoples" specifically
Turkic, and
Tungusic-speaking peoples, together with shared "IBD fragments" in haplotype variation, supporting a Northeast Asian origin of these three groups. Turkic and Western Mongolic populations display the relatively highest amounts of West Eurasian admixture, inline with historical contacts between Ancient Northeast Asians and West Eurasian populations of the Eurasian Steppes, and evidence from linguistic borrowings. In comparison, Eastern, Central and Southern Mongolic peoples as well as Tungusic peoples had considerable less West Eurasian ancestry but higher Yellow River farmers ancestry.
Sinitic peoples largely lacked any West Eurasian-derived ancestry and displayed primarily affinity with historical Yellow River farmers.[30][31]
Notes
^
abSome Mongolic ethnic groups are variously described as subgroups of Mongols or as separate ethnic groups; for example, the
Buryats and the
Kalmyks are recognized as distinct ethnolinguistic groups in Russia (see
2010 Census and other).
^"The gene flow from Western Eurasian was preliminarily detected in Mongol population of TreeMix-based phylogenetic tree; the ancestral source was finally identified in qpAdm, ranging from 5.6 to 11.6% in those Mongolian subgroups; ALDER and GLOBETROTTER supported that the west-east admixture event was recently estimated in the period ranging from Tang Dynasty to Yuan Dynasty. ... We further performed haplotype-based GLOBETROTTER to obtain a high-resolution characterization of the admixture landscaped of three Mongolian subgroups. All targets showed robust signals of west-east admixture (Supplementary Table S11)."[28]
^
abNatalia Zhukovskaia (2005).
"Бурятские шаманки на международной конференции (тункинский опыт, июль 2004 г.) // Женщина и возрождение шаманизма.". Москва: Российская академия наук. Институт этнологии и антропологии имени Н. Н. Миклухо-Маклая. Page 129. In Russian: "... здесь сформировался тот этнический состав населения, который относительно стабильно сохраняется до сегодняшнего дня - булагаты, хонгодоры, сойоты, которые (одни раньше, другие позже) вошли как субэтносы в состав бурят."
^Nanzatov, B. Z. (2003).
"Племенной состав бурят в XIX веке." [Buryat tribe composition in the 19th century]. Народы и культуры Сибири. Взаимодействие как фактор формирования и модернизации (in Russian). Irkutsk. pp. 15–27.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
^Балдаев С. П. (1970). Родословные легенды и предания бурят. Ч. 1 (in Russian). Улан-Удэ. p. 166.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
^Cardinali; et al. 2022"Finally, a very few haplogroups originated in more recent times (<3 kya) and could be linked to historical events." [...] "A post-glacial expansion in eastern Asia was already proved for another mtDNA post-glacial marker, haplogroup U5b (Achilli et al., 2005). A later expansion can be probably connected to the climatic amelioration of the early Holocene that was accompanied by the development of farming and pastoralism and more sedentary communities. A mixed ancestry between Yamnaya and European farmers was recently identified by analyzing ancient Bronze Age Mongolians (Jeong et al., 2020; Wang C. C. et al., 2021). [...] The lack of Mongolia-specific sub-branches might also suggest that the WEu lineages arrived in the Eastern Steppe in more recent times. Certainly, the ages of some WEu lineages between 5 and 3 kya could be linked to Bronze Age migrations across the Eurasian steppes that probably involved also the Afanasievo first (ca. 3300–2500 BCE) and later the Sintashta culture (ca. 2100–1800 BCE). Finally, by searching the available database of ancient mitogenomes for WEu lineages identified in our modern Mongolians, we identified 13 different sub-lineages among remains excavated in Mongolia and dated after the Bronze Age. They might testify for small population movements from the west less than 3,000 ya that can be probably related to commercial routes. Actually, the migration path from western Eurasia to Mongolia marked by some of these mitochondrial sub-lineages (H5a1, J1b2, T2g, U2e1b, U4b1a1a1, and U4b1a4) occurred about 2,500 ya, thus temporally and geographically overlapping with the Silk Route, while other sub-haplogroups, such as J1b1b1 and U2e1a1, seem to have arrived in Mongolia later."
^Rogers, Leland Liu; Kaestle, Frederika Ann (April 2022).
"Analysis of mitochondrial DNA haplogroup frequencies in the population of the slab burial mortuary culture of Mongolia (ca. 1100–300 BCE )". American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 177 (4): 644–657.
doi:10.1002/ajpa.24478.
S2CID246508594. The K hg may represent an ancient addition from early western foragers that had intermixed with early agriculturalists (Spengler, 2015), similar with the probable origins of the C hg found in the ancient Ukraine (Nikitin et al., 2012). The J1c8a haplotype might be from a regional polymorphism that is linked to migrating populations after the expansion of agriculturalism from the Middle East, perhaps associated with the development of caprine pastoralism that reached southeast Kazakhstan by at least 2800 BCE (Hermes et al 2020)."
^Cardinali; et al. 2022"Finally, rather than finding long-distance traces of the Mongol Empire expansion to the west, we identified continuous and recent (female-mediated) connections with neighboring Eastern Asian populations. The geographically restricted sharing of haplotypes from typical EAs mtDNA lineages might represent an outcome of Genghis Khan’s so-called Pax Mongolica still detectable in present-day Mongolians."
^Jeong, Choongwon; Wang, Ke; Wilkin, Shevan; Taylor, William Timothy Treal; Miller, Bryan K.; Bemmann, Jan H.; Stahl, Raphaela; Chiovelli, Chelsea; Knolle, Florian; Ulziibayar, Sodnom; Khatanbaatar, Dorjpurev; Erdenebaatar, Diimaajav; Erdenebat, Ulambayar; Ochir, Ayudai; Ankhsanaa, Ganbold; Vanchigdash, Chuluunkhuu; Ochir, Battuga; Munkhbayar, Chuluunbat; Tumen, Dashzeveg; Kovalev, Alexey; Kradin, Nikolay; Bazarov, Bilikto A.; Miyagashev, Denis A.; Konovalov, Prokopiy B.; Zhambaltarova, Elena; Miller, Alicia Ventresca; Haak, Wolfgang; Schiffels, Stephan; Krause, Johannes; Boivin, Nicole; Erdene, Myagmar; Hendy, Jessica; Warinner, Christina (12 November 2020).
"A Dynamic 6,000-Year Genetic History of Eurasia's Eastern Steppe". Cell. 183 (4): 890–904.e29.
doi:
10.1016/j.cell.2020.10.015.
ISSN0092-8674.
PMC7664836.
PMID33157037.See Figure S2. "We also observed that this East Asian-related ancestry was brought into the Late Medieval populations more by male than female ancestors. ... Overall, Mongol period individuals characterized by a remarkable decrease in Western Eurasian ancestry compared to the preceding 1,600 years. They are best modeled as a mixture of ANA-like and East Asian-like ancestry sources, with only minor Western genetic ancestry. In addition, nearly a third of historic Mongol males (12/38) have Y haplogroup C2b, which is also widespread among modern Mongolians (Figure S3; Table S6); C2b is the presumed patrilineage of Genghis Khan (Zerjal et al., 2003)."
^Sikora, Martin; Pitulko, Vladimir V.; Sousa, Vitor C.; Allentoft, Morten E.; Vinner, Lasse; Rasmussen, Simon; Margaryan, Ashot; de Barros Damgaard, Peter; de la Fuente, Constanza; Renaud, Gabriel; Yang, Melinda A.; Fu, Qiaomei; Dupanloup, Isabelle; Giampoudakis, Konstantinos; Nogués-Bravo, David (2019).
"The population history of northeastern Siberia since the Pleistocene". Nature. 570 (7760): 182–188.
Bibcode:
2019Natur.570..182S.
doi:
10.1038/s41586-019-1279-z.
hdl:1887/3198847.
ISSN1476-4687.
PMID31168093.
S2CID174809069. Most modern Siberian speakers of Neosiberian languages genetically fall on an East- West cline between Europeans and Early East Asians. Taking Even speakers as representatives, the Neosiberian turnover from the south, which largely replaced Ancient Paleosiberian ancestry, can be associated with the northward spread of Tungusic and probably also Turkic and Mongolic. However, the expansions of Tungusic as well as Turkic and Mongolic are too recent to be associable with the earliest waves of Neosiberian ancestry, dated later than ~11 kya, but discernible in the Baikal region from at least 6 kya onwards. Therefore, this phase of the Neosiberian population turnover must initially have transmitted other languages or language families into Siberia, including possibly Uralic and Yukaghir.
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