What is the genetics of modern Russians? Questions about this do not leave the minds of scientists around the world. It is considered to be Russian Slavs, so in the first place we will consider precisely the genetic characteristics of the Slavs. However, even such a limitation of the topic leaves a lot of room for research - there are several branches of the Slavs, and the approach to determining who exactly means Slavs varies.
Who is it about?
Usually, research into the genetics of Russians, primarily Slavs, begins with an attempt to determine what kind of group of persons it is. If you check with a scientist specializing in languages, he will answer without hesitation that there are several language groups, and one of them is Slavic. Consequently, all peoples using the languages of this group for communication since ancient times can be called Slavs. For them, such a language is their native language.
Some difficulty in determining the Slavs, and therefore, for modern research on Russian genetics, is caused by the similarity of ethnic groups using the same language for communication. This is not only about anthropological features, but also about the characteristics of culture. This allows you to expand the linguistic term and add to the Slavs a slightly larger variety of communities.
Separation and unification
Some people think that Russians have bad genetics. They explain this position with a variety of reasons - from historical background to bad habits that have long taken root in society. Scientists do not support this stereotype. Slavic-speaking nationalities and all communities living near them have a close genetic connection. In particular, it is for this reason that the Baltic Slavic populations can be safely considered as a single whole. Although for the layman the Balts and the Slavs seem distant from each other, genetic studies confirm the closeness of nationalities.
Based on linguistic studies, the Slavs and the Balts are also the closest to each other, which makes it possible to distinguish the corresponding Baltic Slavic group. The geographical feature allows us to say that the genetics of Russian people has much in common with the Balts. At the same time, it is noted that the eastern and western Slavic branches, although close to each other, have a number of significant differences that do not allow them to be equated with each other. A special case is the southern Slavic branches, the gene pool of which is fundamentally different, but quite close to the nationalities with which the Slavic branch is adjacent geographically.
How did this come about?
Finding out the origin of Russians in the genetics of the present is one of the main and most urgent tasks. Scientists involved in this kind of scientific work are trying to determine what the ancestral home of Russian people is, what were the ways of migration of the Slavs, and how society developed. In practice, everything is much more complicated than it might seem in the diagram. Even if the entire genome is sequenced, genetic research cannot provide a complete and comprehensive answer to archaeological, linguistic questions. Despite regular studies in this direction, it is not yet possible to determine what the Slavic ancestral home is.
Has a lot of common genetics of Russians and Tatars, as well as other nationalities. In general, the Slavic gene pool is quite rich in elements obtained from the pre-Slavic population. This is due to historical ups and downs. From Novgorod, people gradually moved north and carried their language, culture and religion with them, gradually assimilating the community through which they passed. If the local population was larger in number than the migrating Slavs, the gene pool was precisely their features reflected to a greater extent, while the Slavic share accounted for significantly fewer signs.
History and Practice
Finding out the genetics of Russians, scientists found that the Slavic languages spread rapidly, and soon covered almost half of the European territory. At the same time, the population was not so large that these spaces could be populated. Therefore, scientists suggested that the Slavic gene pool as a whole has pronounced features of a certain pre-Slavic component, which is different for the south, north and east, west. A similar situation has developed with Indo-European nationalities, which spread throughout India and partially in Europe. Genetically, they have a few common features, and the explanation was as follows: the Indo-Europeans assimilated into the European population, who lived on these lands initially. From the first came the language, from the second - the gene pool.
The assimilation revealed in the study of Russian genetics by scientists, as experts concluded, is the rule by which many gene pools existing today are composed. At the same time, the language remains the main ethnic marker. This illustrates well the difference between the Slavs living in the south and the north - their genetics are quite different, but the language is the same. Therefore, the people are also one, although they have two different sources, merged in the process of development of society. At the same time, they pay attention to the fact that human self-knowledge plays a key role in the formation of an ethnic group, and language influences it.
Relatives or neighbors?
Many are interested in what is common and excellent in the genetics of Russians and Tatars. It has long been believed that the period of the Tatar-Mongol yoke had a strong influence on the Russian gene pool, but relatively recent specific studies have shown that the prevailing stereotype is erroneous. There is no clear influence of the Mongolian gene pool. But the Tatars were quite close to the Russians.
In fact, the Tatars are a European nation that has a minimum of similarities with people who inhabit the Central Asian regions. This complicates the search for differences between them and Europeans. At the same time, it was established: the Tatar gene pool is close to the Belarusian, Polish, with which, historically, the nationality did not have such close contacts as with the Russians. This allows us to talk about the similarity of Russians and Tatars, without explaining its dominance.
DNA and history
Why in genetics do northern Russians turn out to be so unlike southern peoples? Why are west and east so different from each other? Scientists have found that the diversity of ethnic groups is associated with ongoing subtle processes - genetic, visible only when analyzing long time periods. To evaluate genetic changes, it is necessary to study the mitochondrial DNA transmitted from mothers and the Y chromosomes that the offspring receives through the father. At the moment, impressive informational bases have already been formed, reflecting in which sequence the nucleotides are located in the molecular structure. This allows you to create phylogenetic trees. About two decades ago, a new science was formed, called the "molecular anthropology." She examines mtDNA and male specific chromosomes and reveals what genetic ethnic history is. Studies in this area are becoming more extensive from year to year, their number is growing.
To identify all the peculiarities of Russians, geneticists are trying to restore the processes under the influence of which gene pools have formed. It is necessary to evaluate the distribution in space and time of the ethnos - on the basis of this, more data can be collected on changes in the structure of DNA. The study of phylogeographic variability and DNA today has made it possible to analyze data collected from many thousands of people from different regions of the world. The data are voluminous enough for the static analyzes performed on them to be reliable. Monophyletic groups were discovered, on the basis of which the steps of Russian evolution are gradually being restored.
Step by step
By studying the genetics of Russians, scientists were able to identify the mitochondrial lines characteristic of peoples living in eastern and western Eurasian regions. Similar studies were conducted with respect to American, Australian and African ethnic groups. Eurasian subgroups are thought to have evolved from three large macrogroups that formed about 65,000 years ago from the same mtDNA group that appeared in Africa.
Analyzing the separation of mtDNA in the Eurasian gene pool, it was found that ethno-racial specificity is quite significant, so the east and west have cardinal differences. But in the north, monomitochondrial lines are predominantly found. This is especially pronounced in regional populations. Genetic studies make it possible to determine that only Caucasoid mtDNAs or derived from the Mongolian race are characteristic of local peoples. The main part of our country, in turn, is the territory of contact, where the mixing of races has become a source of racogenesis for a long time.
One of the major scientific works devoted to the genetics of the Russian people, started about two decades ago and is based on the study of the difference in DNA lines transmitted by father and mother. To determine how great variability is within the framework of one population, it was decided to resort to a combined study, while analyzing polymorphism and the individual sections responsible for encrypting information. However, scientists took into account the variability of nucleotide sequences and hypervariable elements that are not responsible for coding data. It has been established that the mitochondrial genetic fund of the primordial population of our country is diverse, although certain common groups have nevertheless been found - they coincided with others common among Europeans. The impurity of the Mongoloid gene pool is estimated at an average of 1.5%, most of which are East Eurasian mtDNAs.
So similar, but so different
Revealing the peculiarities of the genetics of the Russian people, scientists made attempts to explain why mtDNA shows such a diversity, to what extent the phenomenon is associated with the formation of an ethnic group. For this, mtDNA haplotypes of different populations of the European population were analyzed. Phylogeographic studies have shown that there are some common features, but markers are usually combined with rare subgroups and haplotypes. This suggests the existence of some common substrate, which became the basis for the formation of the genetic fund of the Slavs from the eastern and western regions, as well as nationalities living nearby. But the populations of the southern Slavs are significantly different from the Italians and Greeks living nearby.
As part of assessing the evolution of Russians in genetics, attempts have been made to explain the division of the Slavs into several branches, as well as to track the processes of changing the genetic material against this background. Studies have confirmed that between different groups of Slavs there are differences in the gene pool and anthropological. The variability of the phenomenon is determined by the tightness of contacts with the pre-Slavic population in a particular area, as well as the intensity of mutual influence on neighboring nationalities.
How it all began?
Studies of Russian genetics by modern experts, as well as the study of the gene pool of other ethnic groups, have become possible due to the contribution of the great scientists involved in biology, anthropology and human evolution. The contribution to this field of two scientists born in imperial Russia - Mechnikov, Pavlov, is considered extremely significant. For their merits, they were awarded the Nobel Prize, and in addition, were able to attract the attention of the masses to biology. Before the First World War, a genetic course was first taught at a university in St. Petersburg. In 1917, the Institute of Experimental Biology was opened in Moscow. Three years later, an eugenic society was formed.
It is impossible to overestimate the contribution of Russian scientists to the development of genetics. Koltsov and Bunak, for example, actively investigated the frequency of occurrence of different blood groups, and their work was interested in prominent specialists of that time. Soon the IEB became an object of attraction for the most prominent Russian scientists. Listing the list of Russian geneticists, it is reasonable to start with Mechnikov and Pavlov, but do not forget about the following prominent figures:
- Serebrovsky;
- Dubinin;
- Timofeev-Resovsky.
It is worth noting that it was Serebrovsky who authored the term “genogeography,” which is used to refer to science, whose area of interest is the gene pools of human populations.
Science: just go!
It was at this time, when the most famous Russian geneticists were active that the word "gene pool" was widely used in specific circles. It was introduced to denote the gene population inherent in a certain population. Genogeography is gradually turning into a significant tool. One that is necessary to assess the ethnogenesis of the peoples existing on our planet. Serebrovsky, by the way, was of the opinion that his brainchild was only part of the story, allowing through the gene pool to restore migrations in the past, the processes of mixing ethnic groups and races.
Unfortunately, studies of genetics (Jews, Russians, Tatars, Germans, and other ethnic groups) slowed down significantly during the Lysenko period. In the United Kingdom, Fisher published a paper on genetic diversity and natural selection. It was he who became the basis for science, relevant for modern scientists. For population genetics. But in the Stalinist Soviet Union, genetics is the object of persecution at the initiative of Lysenko. It was his ideas that led to the fact that in 1943 Vavilov died in custody.
History and science
Soon after Khrushchev left power, genetics began to develop in the USSR again. In 1966, the Vavilov Institute was opened, where Rychkov's laboratory is actively operating. In the next decade, significant work was organized with the participation of Cavalli - Sforza, Levontin. In 1953, it was possible to decipher the structure of DNA - this was a real breakthrough. The authors of the works were awarded the Nobel Prize. Geneticists all over the world have at their disposal new tools - markers and haplogroups.
As mentioned above, offspring receive DNA from both parents. Genes are not completely transmitted, but in the process of recombination, individual fragments are observed in different generations. Substitution, mixing, the formation of new sequences occurs. Exceptional objects are the aforementioned paternal and maternal specific chromosomes.
Genetics began to study homogenous markers, and it soon turned out that this is how one can extract a huge amount of information about what happened in past processes. Through mtDNA, unchanged transmitted between generations from the mother, one can trace the ancestors that existed tens of thousands of years ago. Small mutations arise in mtDNA (this is inevitable), and they are also inherited, thanks to which it is possible to track how and why, when genetic differences characteristic of different ethnic groups were formed. 1963 - the year of discovery of mtDNA; 1987 is the year when work on mtDNA was published, explaining what the general female group of ancestors of all people was like.
Who and when?
Scientists initially suggested that a common group of female ancestors existed in eastern African regions. The period of their existence, according to rough estimates, is 150-250 millennia ago. Clarification of the past through the mechanisms of genetics made it possible to find out that the period is much closer - from that moment about 100-150 millennia have passed.
In those days, the total number of representatives of the population was relatively small - only several tens of thousands of individuals, divided into separate groups. Each of them went its own way. About 70-100 millennia ago, modern man crossed the Strait of Mandeb, leaving Africa behind, and began to explore new territories. An alternative migration option considered by scientists is through the Sinai Peninsula.
Through mtDNA, scientists got an idea of the distribution paths on the planet of the female half of humanity. At the same time, new information appeared on mutations of the male chromosome. Based on the information collected over several years, at the end of the last century haplogroups were composed, they formed a single tree.
Genetics: reality and science
The main task of geneticists was to identify the historical paths of the movement of people, to determine the relationships between ethnic groups, as well as the characteristics of evolution. From this point of view, residents of the East European region are of particular interest. For the first time for such an object of study, homogeneous markers began to be studied in the last decade of the last century. The degree of kinship with the Mongoloid race and genetic affinity with Eastern European peoples were revealed.
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It was possible to identify that certain groups of Russians have quite strong differences in the gene pool. Several dozen varieties of genetic kits have already been investigated. We managed to collect a maximum of information about people living in the territory of the former kingdom ruled by Ivan the Terrible.
The task of modern genetics is to study the characteristics of a particular population, not the people as a whole. Genes do not have ethnic identities, cannot speak. Scientists determine whether the boundaries of genotype distribution coincide with ethnic and linguistic ones, and also determine a specific typical set of genes characteristic of a particular ethnic group.