Over the past two years (2019 — 2020), within the framework of the Shejire DNA project, together with IICAS, there have been joint works on the study of the phenomenon of ethno-cultural transfer of the Central Asian region’s population.
Over the past two years (2019 — 2020), within
the framework of the Shejire DNA project, together with IICAS, there have
been joint works on the study of the phenomenon of ethno-cultural
transfer of the Central Asian region’s population.
Its historiography often shows great interest in the Iron
Age, the First Turkic Khaganate, the Mongolian uluses, and the time of
their disintegration. Unfortunately, the general understanding of the
composition of ethnic groups, in particular the nations of Central Asia,
consists of the following simplified structure: in the 13th century, the
Mongolian state and its uluses were created, after the collapse of which
the ethnic groups of Central Asia were formed. However,
such plain structure does not create an idea of how the
ethnogenesis and the gene pool of the population in the considered region
actually developed. Most historians are convinced that there were fewer
Mongol conquerors in the uluses in comparison with locals, and
that the assimilation of the former did not make any significant
cultural and linguistic differences from the population that lived in
the region until the 13th century.
As it is known from historical reports of Muslim and
Chinese sources, since the disintegration of the Uyghur Khaganate in
Mongolia in the 9th century, the ethnocultural transfer of the East Asian
tribes to the territory of Central Asia began, and as a result of an
alliance with local tribes, the Kimak Khaganate/Kimek–Kipchak
confederation was created. The Kimaks/Kimeks themselves are associated
with the people living in the east of Mongolia called the Kumo Xi,
which, according to the Song and
the Wei dynasties, had a common origin with the Khitans. The first mention
of the Kimaks belongs to the Arab traveler Tamim ibn Bahra al-Muttava'i,
who visited the Uyghur Khaganate and mentioned them as a nation living in
the East, in the place where, according to the Chinese data, the Kumo
Xi lived. The Khitans themselves appeared in Central Asia in the 11th
century as a military mercenary force among the Karakhanids, and in 1125, after
the fall of the Liao Empire under the onslaught of the Jurchens in
China, the Khitans, under the leadership of Yelü Dashi and 18 tribes
subservient to him, moved to the territory of Semirechye/Zhetysu and
established the Qara Khitai Khanate (also known as the Western Liao).
Undoubtedly, all those East Asian tribes had a great
influence on the gene pool and culture of the local population. Thus, the
study of the role of the Kimaks and the Khitans/Qara Khitai becomes a
key aspect in the research of the formation of ethnogenesis of
the Central Asian nations. The Khitans founded the Qara Khitai Khanate,
and the Kimaks founded the Kimak Khaganate in Central Asia in the
9th — 12th centuries, changing the tribal and state landscape before
the Mongol invasion, and afterwards they were part of the Mongol
uluses in Central Asia.
In this regard, it becomes especially important and
topical to organize the collection of available paleogenetic materials
from archaeological sites and burials of the Khitan and
the Kimak periods in the territories of Russia, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan for further research and analysis of ancient
genomes, as well as comparing them with modern DNA samples of the Central
Asian tribal communities. Obviously, in the future, the results of these studies
conducted by the Shejire DNA project and IICAS will become
a significant tool for understanding the genetic history of the
formation of ethnogenesis in the Central Asian region.
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