ArticleScience advances2021
Ancient genomic time transect from the Central Asian Steppe unravels the history of the Scythians.
Article in Science advances, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Ancient DNA reveals elite dynastic rule among Iron Age Eurasian Steppe nomads.Science advances · 2026Article
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- On the Edge of Empire: Paleogenomic Insights into Roman Dacia.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Ancient genomes reveal an extensive kinship network and endogamy in a Three-Kingdoms period society in Korea.Science advances · 2026Article
- Genomes of the Golden Horde elites and their implications for the rulers of the Mongol Empire.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Multiple southward migrations of Neolithic Chinese farmers into Southeast Asia revealed from large-scale Y-chromosome sequences.Science advances · 2026Article
- Cosmopolitanism in the depths of Barbaricum evidenced by archaeogenomic data from the Late Iron Age Goth community of the Masłomęcz group.Genome biology · 2026Article
- Paleo-proteomic analysis of Iron Age dental calculus provides direct evidence of Scythian reliance on ruminant dairy.PloS one · 2026Article
- Dynamic human admixture histories over the past ~1300 years at the northern Himalayan frontier.Science advances · 2025Article
- Ancient genomes from eastern Kazakhstan reveal dynamic genetic legacy of Inner Eurasian hunter-gatherers.Science advances · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- Genetic history of Scythia.Science advances · 2025Article
- Urbanization and genetic homogenization in the medieval Low Countries revealed through a ten-century paleogenomic study of the city of Sint-Truiden.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Ancient genomes shed light on the genetic history of the Iron Age to historical central Xinjiang, northwest China.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Ancient genomes reveal trans-Eurasian connections between the European Huns and the Xiongnu Empire.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Article
- North Pontic crossroads: Mobility in Ukraine from the Bronze Age to the early modern period.Science advances · 2025Article
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31 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The Scythians were a multitude of horse-warrior nomad cultures dwelling in the Eurasian steppe during the first millennium BCE. Because of the lack of first-hand written records, little is known about the origins and relations among the different cultures. To address these questions, we produced genome-wide data for 111 ancient individuals retrieved from 39 archaeological sites from the first millennia BCE and CE across the Central Asian Steppe. We uncovered major admixture events in the Late Bronze Age forming the genetic substratum for two main Iron Age gene-pools emerging around the Altai and the Urals respectively. Their demise was mirrored by new genetic turnovers, linked to the spread of the eastern nomad empires in the first centuries CE. Compared to the high genetic heterogeneity of the past, the homogenization of the present-day Kazakhs gene pool is notable, likely a result of 400 years of strict exogamous social rules.
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