Ancient Northeast Asian
In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Northeast Asian, also known as Amur ancestry, is the name given to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the hunter-gatherer people of the 7th–4th millennia before present, in far eastern Siberia, Mongolia, and the Baikal regions. They are inferred to have diverged from Ancient East Asians about 24kya ago, and are represented by several ancient human specimens found in archaeological excavations east of the Altai Mountains. They are a sub-group of the Ancient Northern East Asians.
ANA ancestry is represented by hunter-gatherer remains from the Amur region, as well as remains found in present-day Mongolia.
Origins
The Paleolithic origins of Ancient Northern East Asians are not well understood, mainly due to the lack of archaeological specimens. So far, the oldest populations for which genomic data have been obtained are the "Basal East Asian" Tianyuan man, as well as the Amur33K samples from Northern China and the Amur region respectively. These Basal East Asian populations are not directly ancestral to later Northern East Asians, but represent a deeply diverged branch, next to the Hoabinhian, Jōmon, and Longlin/Guangxi ancestries. Ancient Northern East Asians are more related to Ancient Southern East Asians and diverged from them about 26,000 to 19,000 years ago. When and how this type of ancestry replaced the earlier Tianyuan-like ancestry is not known, but ANEA ancestry became dominant in the Amur region at least 19,000 years ago.To the north and west, Upper Paleolithic Ancient North Eurasians in north and central Siberia, were formed by the admixture of Tianyuan-like ancestry with West Eurasian-related ancestry from Europe. These groups would later interact with ANEA and ANA-rich groups, before getting largely replaced in that region.
There is subsequently a large gap until the Neolithic period, where a specific ANA gene pool has been identified. Ancestry basal to the ANA gene pool, but significantly closer to them than to the Upper Paleolithic Tianyuan-related gene pool or other East Asian lineages, has been found among a sample in the Amur region, suggesting that Ancient Northern East Asians diverged from other southern East Asian populations sometimes between 19kya and 26kya, with the specific ANA gene pool having emerged from local continuity in the Amur region.
Neolithic populations
The first individual to be identified with the specific ANA gene pool came from the Russian Far East, near the Pacific coast, at the Devil's Gate Cave. More Neolithic individuals with the ANA/Amur-like gene pool have been identified in eastern Mongolia, in central Mongolia.The closely related hunter-gatherers from the Baikal region and adjacent regions of Siberia are associated with the Early Neolithic eastern Baikal Fofonovo culture, and the western Baikal Kitoi culture, as well as in conjunction with Ancient Paleo-Siberians, the Early Bronze Age Baikal populations associated with the Glazkovo culture and Cisbaikal_LNBA. They cluster broadly with other ANA populations, but are differentiated from them via drift associated with an earlier inland expansion route, and a minor Ancient North Eurasians component at c. 11%. The ANE-like component is best explained via Ancient Paleo-Siberian-rich groups. They also display genetic affinities with the Yumin hunter-gatherers from Northeast China, as well as the Neolithic and Bronze Age groups in Yakutia and Krasnoyarsk in the Altai-Sayan region. These populations are sometimes described as "Neo-Siberians" and can be differentiated from proper ANA/Amur populations represented by the Neolithic Devils Cave specimen, but share a common recent origin via their Ancient Northern East Asian ancestor. Neo-Siberians are inferred to have expanded prior to the expansion of Neolithic Amur ancestry.
The Devils_Cave_N sample was found to display genetic continuity with a c. 14kya old sample from the Amur region, suggesting that the specific ANA gene pool formed as early as 14,000 BP. Neolithic ANA remains have been found as far as the Altai Mountains, further to the west than previously understood.
However, a 2025 study detected APS ancestry in several ANA populations. For example, Early Neolithic Amur populations can be modeled as a mixture of Amur River ancestry and northern Mongolian Plateau-like ancestry. Ancient individuals from the northern Mongolian Plateau have high affinities with APS populations, with the oldest analyzed individual from the Early Holocene being modeled as a mixture of Early Holocene southeastern Mongolian Plateau ancestry, who have more Yumin affinities, Amur River ancestry and APS ancestry. About 5,700 years ago, populations from the southeastern Mongolian Plateau mixed with their northern neighbors. Yumin-hunter gatherers and Middle Neolithic Haminmangha individuals can likewise be modeled as a mixture of Early Neolithic Shandongers and West Baikal-related populations, who have high APS affinities.
Later populations
Ulaanzuukh and Slab Grave cultures
The people of the Ulaanzuukh and Slab Grave cultures were closely associated with the Ancient Northeast Asians and can be modeled as direct descendants of them. They largely replaced the previous Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Baikal hunter-gatherers, although geneflow between them has been proposed, particularly between a Neolithic Eastern Mongolian population having primarily Amur_N-like ancestry and local Baikal hunter-gatherers.Altai MLBA and Khövsgöl LBA
Several successor groups of the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Baikal hunter-gatherers with varying degrees of Western Steppe Herders/Sintashta-like admixture started to appear in the Altai region during the Late Bronze Age. These groups formed from the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Baikal populations from the Eastern Steppe and subsequent admixture from Western Steppe Herder migrant groups. This includes the Khövsgöl LBA herders from northern Mongolia and the Altai MLBA hunter-gatherers from the Altai region.The Khövsgöl LBA herders are descended from Early Bronze Age Baikal hunter-gatherers with small amounts of admixture from Western Steppe Herders. Genetic analyses revealed that while dairy pastoralism seems to have been adopted by them from the Western Steppe Herders, they were primarily of local Northern East Asian origin, implying cultural transmission. Modern day Tuvans and Nganasans, followed by Nanais, Yukaghirs, Evens, Itelmens, Ulchis, Koryaks, Nivkhs, and Chukchis, are among the people sharing the highest genetic affinities with the Late Bronze Age herders of Khövsgöl, but are not identical to them.
The Altai MLBA gene pool further West can be associated with Eastern Scythians, who can be modeled as deriving significant amounts of ancestry from the Baikal/Shamanka EBA groups, with the remainder being derived from Sintashta-like admixture associated with early Indo-Iranians.
Tarim mummies
A genomic study published in 2021 found that the early Bronze Age Tarim mummies had high levels of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry, with smaller admixture from Ancient Northeast Asians, but no detectable Western Steppe Herder-related ancestry. The demographic make-up of the Tarim Basin evolved from the Late Bronze Age, particularly in the western part: Zhang et al. investigated a Late Bronze Age site in the far west of the Tarim Basin, dated 1600 to 1400 BC, and found that its inhabitants overwhelmingly descended from the Sintashta and Andronovo population, with additional ancestry from BMAC and Tarim_EMBA. Nearly all subjects belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup R-M17.Sakas, Xiongnus, Huns, Avars
The Baikal EBA populations, also contributed to a large extent to the formation of the hybrid Eurasian Scytho-Siberian cultures, such as the Arzhan and Pazyryk as well as the Tasmola cultures of Central Asia from around 1000 BCE, contributing about half of their genetic profile, highlighting the increase in genetic diversity during the late Bronze Age and the following Iron Age.The hybrid Saka cultures in turn played an important role in the formation of the Xiongnu Empire, which combined specific Saka ancestries, with Neolithic Amur-derived Ulaanzuukh and Slab Grave ancestries, to which Sarmatian and Han ancestry was further added at a later stage. High status Xiongnu individuals tended to have less genetic diversity, and their ancestry was essentially derived from the Eastern Eurasian Ulaanzuukh/Slab Grave culture, while low status individuals tended to be more diverse and having higher Saka-like ancestry. A likely chanyu, a male ruler of the Empire identified by his prestigious tomb, was shown to have had similar ancestry as a high status female in the "western frontiers", deriving about 39.3% Slab Grave genetic ancestry, 51.9% Han ancestry, with the rest being Saka ancestry.
A Xiongnu remain analysed in a 2024 study was found to be entirely derived from Ancient Northeast Asians without any West Eurasian-associated ancestry. The sample clustered closely with a Göktürk remain from the later Turkic period.
A later different Eastern influx is evident in three outlier samples of the Saka Tasmola culture and one of the Pazyryk culture, which displayed c. 70–83% additional Amur-derived ancestry, suggesting them to be recent migrants from further East. The same additional Eastern ancestry is found among the later groups of Huns, and the Karakaba remains and may be associated with the westwards expansion of Xiongnu tribes. A Hun individual from an elite burial of the mid-4th century CE in Budapest, Hungary, was reconstructed as 60% Ancient Northeast Asian/Amur and 40% Saka.
The 7-8th century Avars in Europe, particularly as regards the Avar elite, were also confirmed to have essentially Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry, with some additions from other sources.
Göktürks
The Turkic princess Ashina, whose remains were sequenced, was found to be genetically closely associated with Ancient Northeast Asians, which according to Yang et al supports a Northeast Asian origin of the Ashina tribe and the Göktürk Khanate. These findings refute "the western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses" in favor of an East Asian origin for the Göktürks. The ruling clan of the Turkic peoples, the Ashina tribe, was found to display close genetic affinities with the earlier Slab Grave and Ulaanzuukh culture remains. However, the authors also observed that the population of the "Türkic Empire" as a whole, particularly Central Steppe and Medieval Türks, had a high but variable degree of West Eurasian admixture, suggesting genetic sub-structure within the empire: for example, the ancestry of early medieval Turks was derived from Ancient Northeast Asians for about 62,2% of their genome, while the remaining 37,8% was derived from West Eurasians, with the admixture occurring around the year 500 CE.Two Türk remains excavated from present-day eastern Mongolia analysed in a 2024 paper, were found to display only little to no West Eurasian ancestry. One of the Türk remains was derived entirely from an Ancient Northeast Asian source, while the other Türk remain displayed an "admixed profile" deriving c. 48−50% ancestry from Ancient Northeast Asians, c. 47% ancestry from an ancestry maximised in Han Chinese, and 3−5% ancestry from a West Eurasian source. The GD2-4 belonged to the paternal haplogroup D-M174. The authors argue that these findings are "providing a new piece of information on this understudied period".