Genetic map of peoples created by Russian scientists. The map of the genetic history of mankind revealed traces of the slave trade and wars. §one. Distances from three language families

German scientists have created an interactive map of the genetic mixing of peoples throughout history. Their article on the methodology for its creation was published in the scientific journal Science.

To create it, scientists had to take DNA samples from 1,490 individuals living in 90 different places around the world.

After conducting DNA sequencing, as well as identifying similarities and differences, the researchers managed to create a kind of global atlas.

On its interactive basis, you can see the likely genetic consequences of historical events, including European colonialism, the emergence of the Mongol Empire, the Arab conquests, as well as trade along the Silk Road.

Interesting data were obtained in a study of 20 residents of Georgia: most of the genes that came to them were from the Circassians, then from the Greeks, then from Armenians and southern Italians.

The Circassians have the most genes that came from Georgians, Hungarians and Turks.

Lezgins have the most genes that came from Austrian Germans, Armenians and Georgians

Armenians have genes from Iranians, Georgians and Poles, but the origin of the Armenians themselves is not clear, as stated in the site of this map

Researchers first created detailed map genetic structure of UK populations. It turned out that the population of the Celtic territory is not at all genetically homogeneous, and the most ancient gene pool was preserved in Wales. Comparison of the DNA of the British and continental Europeans indicated the genetic profile of the ancestors for each region. In the gene pool of a modern population, it was possible to see a reflection major events in the history of the settlement of the British Isles.

The study of genetic differences between modern populations helps to look deep into history and see the traces of migrations of populations, thanks to which the modern gene pool was formed. This work was carried out by an international team of researchers led by British experts from the University of Oxford and University College London, their article was published in the journal Nature on March 19. Walter Bodmer, Peter Donnelly and their colleagues analyzed in detail the genetic structure of the UK population. They not only built a very accurate genetic map of the modern British population, but also found traces of the most important historical migrations and clarified the pattern of settlement in the British Isles.

The gene pool reflects geography

The researchers collected DNA from 2039 people from different areas of the UK. When choosing, they were guided by the following rule: all the ancestors of a person in the third generation (both grandmothers and both grandfathers) had to live no further than 80 km from each other. This condition made it possible to obtain a "snapshot" of the genetic structure of the British population of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

To compare DNA, scientists used more than 500,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) scattered throughout the genome. Their analysis was carried out using the fineSTRUCTURE and GLOBETROTTER statistical methods. These methods clustered DNA samples based on their similarity, regardless of where in the UK they were collected. And by placing a sample of each person at a point halfway between their grandparents' birthplaces, they were able to see how genetic similarity correlated with geographic location.

Genetic clusters in which 2039 DNA samples from UK populations were grouped.

The coincidence was amazing. As can be seen in the figure, 17 genetic clusters were distributed on the map in accordance with the geographical location of the samples taken. Different clusters practically do not overlap. And since these clusters were formed from all samples, regardless of their geography, this correspondence reflects the real genetic diversity of the population, the authors emphasize.

The population of the county of Orkney in the Orkney Islands to the north of Scotland turned out to be the most genetically diverse; it includes three clusters. Genetic differences are clearly visible between different areas of the UK: northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland together differ from southern England, north Wales differs from south, and Cornwall forms a separate cluster. The boundaries of clusters often coincide with the modern boundaries of historical provinces, for example, on the border of Cornwall and Devon, on the border of England and Wales. The largest cluster (shown as red squares on the map) covers most of central and southern England and the east coast. It combines almost half of the DNA samples included in the study.

The authors built a phylogenetic tree of the British populations, showing how the clusters were formed, how the main branches were separated. As you can see on the tree, at the earliest stage, a branch of the population of the Orkney Islands seceded, at the next stage, Wales seceded. Subsequent forks in the tree led to the separation of north and south Wales, the separation of northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland from the rest of England, and the separation of Cornwall from the rest of the clusters.

Thus, the idea of the genetic homogeneity of the Celtic populations of Great Britain as the most ancient, not influenced by the Saxon migration, was not confirmed. On the contrary, the Celtic part of Great Britain (Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Cornwall) turned out to be much more genetically diverse than the rest of the territory.

Even though the clusters within the British population stood out so clearly, when the scientists measured the genetic distance between them, it was small (mean 0.002, maximum 0.007). This means that the observed differences are very subtle and can only be seen with a strong "zoom", which is what the researchers created using a powerful statistical method. For comparison, they analyzed their data using the standard Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and ADMIXTURE methods. Both methods showed the separation of the Orkney and Wales branches, but did not reveal the finer genetic structure of the population.

Continental footprint in the British genome

Genetic differences within the British population may be the result of isolation of certain population groups from each other, and also reflect the contribution of various migrations and the process of mixing of migrants with the indigenous population. To deal with the latter, the researchers used the same method to compare DNA samples from the British population with samples from more than 6,000 continental Europeans from 10 countries. These samples were divided into 51 groups according to genetic similarity.

European genetic profiles for 17 British clusters.

For each British cluster, the scientists assessed the contribution of each continental group and determined the genetic profile of the ancestors. The analysis showed that some European groups, for example from western Germany, the Flemish part of Belgium, northwestern France, southern France and Spain, made a significant contribution to the origin of almost all British clusters. Others have contributed only to some specific clusters, for example, the Norwegians have had a significant impact on the formation of clusters in Orkney and less so in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The gene pool reflects history

The genetic data reflected traces of migrations to the British Isles over the past 10,000 years. According to the nature of the influence of continental groups on British clusters, researchers distinguish the relative time of migration events. Those groups whose contribution is found in all clusters obviously point to more ancient migrations. Enough time has passed since then for their haplotypes to spread to other parts of the UK. The continental footprint in separate clusters is obviously the result of more recent migrations.

The main events of the settlement of the British Isles.

The conquest of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th century left the most noticeable trace. The genetic contribution of Anglo-Saxon migration is significant in south-east, central and southern England, although it does not exceed 50% anywhere, and in most of the territory it ranges from 10 to 40%. This indicates that the Anglo-Saxons did not completely displace the local population of the Britons (Celts), but mixed with it. Some clusters coincide topographically with the territories of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and clans. It seems that these territories have retained their ethnographic and genetic identity for many centuries, the researchers emphasize.

In the populations of the Orkney Islands, 25% of the gene pool is attributed to the ancestors of Norwegian origin, these are traces of the Norwegian Viking invasion of the islands, which happened in the 9th century. Genetic data also indicate that the Norwegian Vikings did not displace the indigenous population, but mixed with it. But clear genetic traces the Danish Vikings, who at the same time controlled a large part of England, could not be found.

As for the earliest settlement of the British Isles - after the end of the last glaciation - its traces are best preserved in the populations of Wales. Evidence also points to a subsequent significant migration from the continent, even before the conquest of Britain by the Roman Empire at the beginning of the first millennium AD. The genetic influence of this migration spread throughout England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but almost bypassed Wales, which has the most ancient gene pool.

The authors of the study convincingly showed how genetics can supplement and refine archaeological and linguistic information in order to reconstruct the history of populations. A competent selection of initial data and powerful statistical methods helped them to obtain a detailed genetic map of the country and look into the past of the British population.

A source:

The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population

Stephen Leslie, Bruce Winney, Garrett Hellenthal, Dan Davison, Abdelhamid Boumertit, Tammy Day, Katarzyna Hutnik, Ellen C. Royrvik, Barry Cunliffe, Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium, Daniel J. Lawson, Daniel Falush, Colin Freeman, Matti Pirinen, Simon Myers, Mark Robinson, Peter Donnelly & Walter Bodmer

Nature, 2015, v.519, 7543, doi:10.1038/nature14230

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14230.html

We constantly hear that the Russians are not a blood-solid people, related by blood, but a conglomerate of people united by a common culture and territory. Everyone remembers Putin's catch phrases "There are no pure Russians!" and "scratch every Russian, you will certainly find a Tatar."

They say that we are “very different in blood”, “not sprouted from the same root”, but were a melting pot for the Tatar, Caucasian, German, Finnish, Buryat, Mordovian and other peoples who ever ran, entered, strayed on our land, and we accepted them all, let them into the house, took them into relatives.

It has become almost an axiom in use by politicians who blur the concept of Russian, and at the same time for everyone it was an entrance ticket to the environment of the Russian people.

This approach, raised to the flag by numerous Russophobic a la "human rights" organizations and Russian Russophobic media outlets, flooded the airwaves. But, sooner or later, Putin and others like him will still have to answer for their words of humiliation of the Russian people. The verdict of scientists is merciless:

1) In 2009, a complete “reading” (sequencing) of the genome of a representative of the Russian ethnic group was completed. That is, the sequence of all six billion nucleotides in the genome of the Russian man has been determined. His entire genetic economy is now in full view.

(The human genome consists of 23 pairs of chromosomes: 23 from the mother, 23 from the father. Each chromosome contains one DNA molecule formed by a chain of 50-250 million nucleotides. The genome of the Russian man was sequenced. The Russian genome was deciphered on the basis of the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute", on the initiative of Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute" Mikhail Kovalchuk. According to information received from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Kurchatov Institute spent approximately $ 20 million on the purchase of sequencing equipment alone. Center "Kurchatov Institute" has a recognized scientific status in the world.)

It is known that this is the seventh deciphered gene behind the Ural ridge: before that there were Yakuts, Buryats, Chinese, Kazakhs, Old Believers, Khanty. That is, all the prerequisites for the first ethnic map of Russia have been created. But all these were, so to speak, composite genomes: pieces assembled after deciphering the genetic material of different representatives of the same population.

The full genetic portrait of a particular Russian man is only the eighth in the world. Now there is someone to compare the Russians with: with an American, an African, a Korean, a European ...

“We did not find noticeable Tatar introductions in the Russian genome, which refutes theories about the destructive influence of the Mongol yoke,” emphasizes Academician Konstantin Skryabin, head of the genomic direction at the Kurchatov Institute. -Siberians are genetically identical to the Old Believers, they have one Russian genome. There are no differences between the genomes of Russians and Ukrainians - one genome. Our differences with the Poles are scanty.”

Academician Konstantin Skryabin believes that "in five or six years, a genetic map of all the peoples of the world will be drawn up - this is a decisive step towards understanding the susceptibility of any ethnic group to medicines, diseases and products." Feel what it costs... Americans in the 1990s gave the following estimates: the cost of sequencing one nucleotide is $1; according to other sources - up to 3-5 dollars.

(Sequencing (reading by letter of the genetic code) of mitochondrial DNA and DNA of the human Y chromosome is the most advanced DNA analysis methods to date. Mitochondrial DNA is transmitted through the female line from generation to generation, practically unchanged since the time when "the progenitor of mankind Eve "Climbed off a tree in East Africa. And the Y chromosome is only found in men and therefore is also transmitted to male offspring practically unchanged, while all other chromosomes, when transmitted from father and mother to their children, are shuffled by nature, like a deck of cards before distribution. Thus , unlike indirect signs (appearance, body proportions), sequencing of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA indisputably and directly indicates the degree of relatedness of people.)

2) An outstanding anthropologist, researcher of human biological nature, A.P. Bogdanov wrote at the end of the 19th century: “We often use expressions: this is purely Russian beauty, this is the spitting image of a hare, a typical Russian face. One can be convinced that not something fantastic, but real, lies in this general expression Russian physiognomy. In each of us, in the sphere of our “unconscious”, there is a rather definite concept of the Russian type ”(A.P. Bogdanov“ Anthropological Physiognomy ”. M., 1878).

A hundred years later, and now the modern anthropologist V. Deryabin, using the latest method of mathematical multidimensional analysis of mixed features, comes to the same conclusion: “The first and most important conclusion is to ascertain the significant unity of Russians throughout Russia and the impossibility to single out even the corresponding regional types, clearly delimited from each other” (“Issues of Anthropology”, Issue 88, 1995). How is this Russian anthropological unity expressed, the unity of hereditary genetic traits, expressed in the appearance of a person, in the structure of his body?

First of all - hair color and eye color, the shape of the structure of the skull. According to these features, we Russians differ both from European peoples and from the Mongoloids. And we cannot be compared with Negroes and Semites at all, the differences are too striking. Academician V.P. Alekseev proved a high degree of similarity in the structure of the skull among all representatives of the modern Russian people, while specifying that the “Proto-Slavic type” is very stable and has its roots in the Neolithic, and possibly the Mesolithic. According to the calculations of the anthropologist Deryabin, light eyes (gray, gray-blue, blue and blue) in Russians are found in 45 percent, in Western Europe light-eyed only 35 percent. Dark, black hair in Russians is found in five percent, in the population of foreign Europe - in 45 percent. The conventional wisdom about the "snub-nosedness" of the Russians is not confirmed either. In 75 percent of Russians, a straight nose profile is found.

Conclusion of anthropologists:
“Russians in their racial composition are typical Caucasoids, occupying a central position among the peoples of Europe by most anthropological features and are distinguished by somewhat lighter pigmentation of the eyes and hair. It should also recognize the significant unity of the racial type of Russians throughout European Russia.
“A Russian is a European, but a European with physical characteristics peculiar only to him. These signs make up what we call a typical hare.

Anthropologists seriously scratched the Russian, and - there is no Tatar, that is, a Mongoloid, in the Russians. One of the typical signs of a Mongoloid is the epicanthus - a Mongolian fold at the inner corner of the eye. In typical Mongoloids, this fold is found in 95 percent, in a study of eight and a half thousand Russians, such a fold was found in only 12 people, and in an embryonic form.

Another example. Russians literally have a special blood - the predominance of the 1st and 2nd groups, which is evidenced by the many years of practice of blood transfusion stations. In Jews, for example, the predominant blood type is the 4th, and a negative Rh factor is more common. In biochemical blood tests, it turned out that Russians, like all European peoples, are characterized by a special gene RN-c, this gene is practically absent in Mongoloids (O.V. Borisova “Polymorphism of erythrocyte acid phosphatase in various population groups Soviet Union". "Problems of Anthropology". Issue. 53, 1976).

It turns out, no matter how you scrape a Russian, you still won’t find a Tatar, you won’t find anyone else in him. This is also confirmed by the encyclopedia “Peoples of Russia”, in the chapter “Racial Composition of the Population of Russia” it is noted: “Representatives of the Caucasoid race make up more than 90 percent of the country's population and about 9 percent are representatives of forms mixed between Caucasoids and Mongoloids. The number of pure Mongoloids does not exceed 1 million people. (“Peoples of Russia”. M., 1994).

It is easy to calculate that if there are 84 percent of Russians in Russia, then all of them are exclusively a people of the European type. The peoples of Siberia, the Volga region, the Caucasus, the Urals are a mixture of the European and Mongolian races. This was beautifully expressed by the anthropologist A.P. Bogdanov in the 19th century, studying the peoples of Russia, he wrote, refuting from his far, far away the current myth that the Russians poured foreign blood into their people during the era of invasions and colonizations:

“Maybe many Russians married native women and became settled, but most of the primitive Russian colonialists throughout Russia and Siberia were not like that. It was a trading, industrial people, anxious to arrange themselves according to their own, in accordance with their own ideal of well-being created for themselves. And this ideal of a Russian person is not at all such that it is easy to twist his life with some kind of “trash”, just as now a Russian person honors a non-believer quite often. He will conduct business with him, will be affectionate and friendly with him, will enter into friendship with him in everything, except for intermarrying, in order to introduce a foreign element into his family. Ordinary Russian people are still strong for this, and when it comes to the family, to the rooting of their home, here he has a kind of aristocracy. Often settlers of different tribes live in the neighborhood, but marriages between them are rare.

For thousands of years, the Russian physical type has remained stable and unchanged, and has never been a cross between different tribes that inhabited our land from time to time. The myth has been dispelled, we must understand that the call of blood is not an empty phrase, that our national idea of the Russian type is the reality of the Russian breed. We must learn to see this breed, admire it, appreciate it in our close and distant Russian relatives. And then, perhaps, our Russian appeal to completely alien, but our own people for us will be revived - father, mother, brother, sister, son and daughter. After all, in fact, we are all from a single root, from one kind - the Russian kind.

3) Anthropologists were able to identify the appearance of a typical Russian person. To do this, they had to translate into a single scale all the photographs from the photo library of the Museum of Anthropology with full-face and profile images. typical representatives of the population of the Russian regions of the country and, combining them in the pupils of the eyes, put them on top of each other. The final photo portraits turned out, of course, blurry, but they gave an idea of the appearance of the reference Russian people. This was the first truly sensational discovery. Indeed, similar attempts by French scientists led to a result that they had to hide from the citizens of their country: after thousands of combinations with the received photographs of the reference Jacques and Marianne, gray faceless ovals of faces looked. Such a picture, even among the French most distant from anthropology, could cause an unnecessary question: is there a French nation at all?

Unfortunately, anthropologists did not go further than creating photographic portraits of typical representatives of the Russian population in different regions of the country and did not superimpose them on top of each other in order to obtain the appearance of an absolute Russian person. In the end, they were forced to admit that such a photo could get them into trouble at work. By the way, the "regional" sketches of the Russian people were published in the general press only in 2002, and before that they were published in small editions only in scientific publications for specialists. Now you can judge for yourself how similar they are to the typical cinematic Ivanushka and Marya.

Unfortunately, mostly black and white old archival photos of the faces of Russian people do not allow us to convey the height, physique, skin color, hair and eyes of a Russian person. However, anthropologists have created a verbal portrait of Russian men and women. They are of medium build and medium height, light brown-haired with light eyes - gray or blue. By the way, in the course of the research, a verbal portrait of a typical Ukrainian was also obtained. The reference Ukrainian differs from the Russian only in the color of his skin, hair and eyes - he is a swarthy brunette with regular features and brown eyes. The snub nose turned out to be absolutely uncharacteristic of the Eastern Slav (found only in 7% of Russians and Ukrainians), this feature is more typical for Germans (25%).

4) In 2000, the Russian Fund fundamental research” allocated about half a million rubles from the state budget for the study of the gene pool of the Russian people. It is impossible to implement a serious program with such funding. But it was more of a landmark than just a financial decision, indicating a change in the country's scientific priorities. Scientists from the laboratory who received the RFBR grant population genetics human of the Medical Genetic Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences for the first time in national history were able to fully concentrate on studying the gene pool of the Russian people, and not small peoples, for three years. And limited funding only spurred their ingenuity. They supplemented their molecular genetic studies with an analysis of the frequency distribution of Russian surnames in the country. This method was very cheap, but its information content exceeded all expectations: a comparison of the geography of surnames with the geography of genetic DNA markers showed their almost complete coincidence.

Unfortunately, the interpretations of family analysis that appeared in the media after the first publication of the data in a specialized scientific journal could create a false impression of the goals and results of the huge work of scientists. The project manager, Doctor of Science Elena Balanovskaya, explained that the main thing was not that the surname Smirnov turned out to be more common among Russian people than Ivanov, but that it was first compiled full list true Russian surnames by regions of the country. First, lists were compiled for five conditional regions - Northern, Central, Central-Western, Central-Eastern and Southern. In total, about 15 thousand Russian surnames were accumulated in all regions, most of which were found only in one of the regions and were absent in others. When regional lists were superimposed on each other, scientists identified a total of 257 so-called "all-Russian surnames". Interestingly, on final stage research, they decided to add the names of residents of the Krasnodar Territory to the list of the Southern Region, expecting that the predominance of Ukrainian surnames of the descendants of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks evicted here by Catherine II would significantly reduce the all-Russian list. But this additional restriction reduced the list of all-Russian surnames by only 7 units - to 250. From which followed the obvious and not for everyone pleasant conclusion that the Kuban is inhabited mainly by Russian people. And where did the Ukrainians go and were there at all Ukrainians is a big question.

For three years, the participants of the Russian Gene Pool project went around with a syringe and a test tube almost the entire European territory of the Russian Federation and made a very representative sample of Russian blood.

However, cheap indirect methods for studying the genetics of the Russian people (by surnames and dermatoglyphics) were only auxiliary for the first study in Russia of the gene pool of the titular nationality. His main molecular genetic results are available in the monograph Russian Gene Pool (Luch ed.). Unfortunately, due to the lack of state funding, the scientists had to carry out part of the study jointly with foreign colleagues, who imposed a moratorium on many results until joint publications were published in the scientific press. Nothing prevents us from describing these data in words. So, according to the Y-chromosome, the genetic distance between Russians and Finns is 30 conventional units. And the genetic distance between a Russian person and the so-called Finno-Ugric peoples (Mari, Veps, etc.) living on the territory of the Russian Federation is 2-3 units. Simply put, genetically they are almost identical. The results of the analysis of mitochondrial DNA show that the Russians from the Tatars are at the same genetic distance of 30 conventional units that separate us from the Finns, but between the Ukrainians from Lviv and the Tatars the genetic distance is only 10 units. And at the same time, Ukrainians from the left-bank Ukraine are genetically as close to Russians as Komi-Zyryans, Mordvins and Mari.

http://topwar.ru/22730-geneticheskaya-karta-russkih.html

We hear all the time that Russians are not a people united by blood, kindred by blood, but a conglomeration of people united by a common culture and territory. Everyone remembers Putin's catch phrases "There are no pure Russians!" and "scratch every Russian, you will certainly find a Tatar."

It has become almost an axiom in use by politicians who blur the concept of Russian, and at the same time for everyone it was an entrance ticket to the environment of the Russian people.

It is known that this is the seventh gene deciphered beyond the Ural ridge: before that there were Yakuts, Buryats, Chinese, Kazakhs, Old Believers, Khanty. That is, all the prerequisites for the first ethnic map of Russia have been created. But all these were, so to speak, composite genomes: pieces assembled after deciphering the genetic material of different representatives of the same population.

The full genetic portrait of a particular Russian man is only the eighth in the world. Now there is someone to compare the Russians with: with an American, an African, a Korean, a European ...

“We did not find noticeable Tatar introductions in the Russian genome, which refutes theories about the destructive influence of the Mongol yoke,” emphasizes Academician Konstantin Skryabin, head of the genomic department at the Kurchatov Institute. -Siberians are genetically identical to the Old Believers, they have one Russian genome. There are no differences between the genomes of Russians and Ukrainians - one genome. Our differences with the Poles are scanty.”

Academician Konstantin Skryabin believes that "in five or six years a genetic map of all the peoples of the world will be drawn up - this is a decisive step towards understanding the susceptibility of any ethnic group to medicines, diseases and products." Feel what it costs... Americans in the 1990s gave the following estimates: the cost of sequencing one nucleotide is $1; according to other sources - up to 3-5 dollars.

(Sequencing (reading by letter of the genetic code) of mitochondrial DNA and DNA of the human Y-chromosome is the most advanced DNA analysis methods to date .. Mitochondrial DNA is transmitted through the female line from generation to generation, practically unchanged since the time when "the progenitor of mankind Eve "Climbed off a tree in East Africa. And the Y chromosome is only found in men and therefore is also transmitted to male offspring practically unchanged, while all other chromosomes, when transmitted from father and mother to their children, are shuffled by nature, like a deck of cards before distribution. Thus , unlike indirect signs (appearance, body proportions), sequencing of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA indisputably and directly indicates the degree of relatedness of people.)

First of all - hair color and eye color, the shape of the structure of the skull. According to these features, we Russians differ both from European peoples and from the Mongoloids. And we cannot be compared with Negroes and Semites at all, the differences are too striking. Academician V.P. Alekseev proved a high degree of similarity in the structure of the skull among all representatives of the modern Russian people, while specifying that the “Proto-Slavic type” is very stable and has its roots in the Neolithic, and possibly the Mesolithic. According to the calculations of the anthropologist Deryabin, light eyes (gray, gray-blue, blue and blue) are found in 45 percent of Russians, in Western Europe only 35 percent are light-eyed. Dark, black hair in Russians is found in five percent, in the population of foreign Europe - in 45 percent. The conventional wisdom about the "snub-nosedness" of the Russians is not confirmed either. In 75 percent of Russians, a straight nose profile is found.

Conclusion of anthropologists:
“Russians in their racial composition are typical Caucasians, who by most anthropological features occupy a central position among the peoples of Europe and are distinguished by somewhat lighter pigmentation of their eyes and hair. It should also recognize the significant unity of the racial type of Russians throughout European Russia.
“A Russian is a European, but a European with physical characteristics peculiar only to him. These signs make up what we call a typical hare.”

Anthropologists seriously scratched the Russian, and - there is no Tatar, that is, a Mongoloid, in the Russians. One of the typical signs of a Mongoloid is epicanthus - a Mongolian fold at the inner corner of the eye. In typical Mongoloids, this fold is found in 95 percent, in a study of eight and a half thousand Russians, such a fold was found in only 12 people, and in an embryonic form.

Another example. Russians literally have a special blood - the predominance of the 1st and 2nd groups, which is evidenced by the many years of practice of blood transfusion stations. In Jews, for example, the predominant blood type is the 4th, and a negative Rh factor is more common. In biochemical blood tests, it turned out that the Russians, like all European peoples, are characterized by a special gene RN-c, this gene is practically absent in the Mongoloids (O.V. Borisova "Polymorphism of erythrocyte acid phosphatase in various population groups of the Soviet Union." "Issues of anthropology Issue 53, 1976).

3) Anthropologists were able to identify the appearance of a typical Russian person. To do this, they had to translate into a single scale all the photographs from the photo library of the Museum of Anthropology with full-face and profile images of typical representatives of the population of the Russian regions of the country and, combining them in the pupils of the eyes, overlay each other. The final photo portraits turned out, of course, blurry, but they gave an idea of the appearance of the reference Russian people. This was the first truly sensational discovery. Indeed, similar attempts by French scientists led to a result that they had to hide from the citizens of their country: after thousands of combinations with the received photographs of the reference Jacques and Marianne, gray faceless ovals of faces looked. Such a picture, even among the French most distant from anthropology, could cause an unnecessary question: is there a French nation at all?

Unfortunately, mostly black and white old archival photos of the faces of Russian people do not allow us to convey the height, physique, skin color, hair and eyes of a Russian person. However, anthropologists have created a verbal portrait of Russian men and women. These are of medium build and medium height, light brown-haired with light eyes - gray or blue. By the way, in the course of the research, a verbal portrait of a typical Ukrainian was also obtained. The reference Ukrainian differs from the Russian only in the color of his skin, hair and eyes - he is a swarthy brunette with regular features and brown eyes. The snub nose turned out to be absolutely uncharacteristic of the Eastern Slav (found only in 7% of Russians and Ukrainians), this feature is more typical for Germans (25%).

4) In 2000, the Russian Foundation for Basic Research allocated about half a million rubles from state budget funds to study the gene pool of the Russian people. It is impossible to implement a serious program with such funding. But it was more of a landmark than just a financial decision, indicating a change in the country's scientific priorities. For the first time in the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientists from the Laboratory of Human Population Genetics of the Medical Genetic Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, who received a grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, were able to fully focus on studying the gene pool of the Russian people, and not small peoples, for three years. And limited funding only spurred their ingenuity. They supplemented their molecular genetic studies with an analysis of the frequency distribution of Russian surnames in the country. This method was very cheap, but its information content exceeded all expectations: a comparison of the geography of surnames with the geography of genetic DNA markers showed their almost complete coincidence.

Unfortunately, the interpretations of family analysis that appeared in the media after the first publication of the data in a specialized scientific journal could create a false impression of the goals and results of the huge work of scientists. The project manager, Doctor of Science Elena Balanovskaya, explained that the main thing was not that the surname Smirnov turned out to be more common among Russian people than Ivanov, but that for the first time a complete list of truly Russian surnames was compiled by region of the country. First, lists were compiled for five conditional regions - Northern, Central, Central-Western, Central-Eastern and Southern. In total, about 15 thousand Russian surnames were accumulated in all regions, most of which were found only in one of the regions and were absent in others. When regional lists were superimposed on each other, scientists identified a total of 257 so-called "all-Russian surnames". Interestingly, at the final stage of the study, they decided to add the names of residents of the Krasnodar Territory to the list of the Southern Region, expecting that the predominance of Ukrainian surnames of the descendants of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks evicted here by Catherine II would significantly reduce the all-Russian list. But this additional restriction reduced the list of all-Russian surnames by only 7 units - to 250. From which the obvious and not pleasant conclusion followed that the Kuban was inhabited mainly by Russian people. And where did the Ukrainians go and were there at all here - the big question.

Based on materials from http://www.genofond.ru, http://www.cell.com/AJHG/, http://www.yhrd.org, http://narodinfo.ru, http://www.vechnayamolodost .ru, http://www.medgenetics.ru, http://www.kiae.ru

A team of researchers from the University of Oxford and University College London, with funding from the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society, has produced the first interactive map of human genetic history. The new database is based on the latest data on genetic mixing of 95 populations in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America over the past four thousand years.

In their paper, published recently in the journal Science, the scientists not only identify, but also date and characterize each round of genetic mixing between populations. For the work, complex statistical methods of DNA analysis of 1490 individuals in 95 populations around the world were used.

"DNA deciphering really helps to read history and reveal the details of the past of mankind," says study co-author Dr. Simon Myers, of the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford and the Center for Human Genetics of the Wellcome Trust.

The map conventionally indicates historical events during which genetic mixing of peoples occurred. Different colors indicate different entrance groups

The authors of the project emphasize that they used exclusively genetic data in their work, which made it possible to collect information independent of other sources. However, many of them clearly coincide with historical events, and also reveals previously unaccounted for evidence of genetic mixing.

The statistical technique, called the authors of the study Globetrotter (literally "traveler on the globe"), gave the right idea about the most important historical information, for example, about the legacy of the Mongol Empire. Historical evidence suggests that the Hazaras from Pakistan are partly descendants of Mongol warriors. The genetic study also revealed clear evidence of the integration of Mongolian DNA into this population during the period of the Mongol Empire.

Six other peoples, inhabiting the area from the west of Turkey to the Far East, also have traces of genetic mixing with the Mongols in the same historical period.

Scheme of individual genetic mixing

(illustrated by Chromosome Painting Collective).

"Most of all, what strikes me is how accurately our methodology works. Reconstructing the historical picture of mixing peoples is often complicated by the occurrence of mutations in the genes, but information about the genome as a whole allows us to restore the full course of history. It is interesting that sometimes neighboring peoples are very genetically different from each other ", - says the study's lead author Dr. Garrett Hellenthal (Garrett Hellenthal) from University College London.

Scientists also found similarities in their data with historical records of the Arab slave trade, during which there was a mixture between the peoples living in Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and some populations of Europe.