[DNA analysis in the anthropological approach of ancient populations]

The authors highlight the opportunities to reconstruct the human Eurasian steppe migration movements with the analyses of nuclear DNA markers (short tandem repeats on autosomal DNA and on the Y chromosome) as well as mitochondrial DNA markers. They studied 26 ancient human samples from the Krasnoyarsk area (Southern Siberia). The specimens were dated from the middle of the second millennium BC to the fourth century AD. The Y chromosome and the mitochondrial analyses revealed that few of them seem to be related matrilineally or patrilineally, but all subjects belong to Y haplogroup R1a1a-M17 which is known as a marker of the eastward migration of the early Indo-Europeans. Their results are in accordance with the hypothesis that at the Bronze and Iron Ages south Siberia was settled predominantly by European subjects suggesting an eastward migration of kurgan people across the Russo-Kazakh steppe. The single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) analyses on the physical traits indicate that the ancient studied specimens were blue or green eyed, fair skinned and light-haired.