Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Université Paris 7, UMR 7206, Éco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie, Paris, France.
Eur J Hum Genet. 2011 Feb;19(2):216-23. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2010.153. Epub 2010 Sep 8.
Located in the Eurasian heartland, Central Asia has played a major role in both the early spread of modern humans out of Africa and the more recent settlements of differentiated populations across Eurasia. A detailed knowledge of the peopling in this vast region would therefore greatly improve our understanding of range expansions, colonizations and recurrent migrations, including the impact of the historical expansion of eastern nomadic groups that occurred in Central Asia. However, despite its presumable importance, little is known about the level and the distribution of genetic variation in this region. We genotyped 26 Indo-Iranian- and Turkic-speaking populations, belonging to six different ethnic groups, at 27 autosomal microsatellite loci. The analysis of genetic variation reveals that Central Asian diversity is mainly shaped by linguistic affiliation, with Turkic-speaking populations forming a cluster more closely related to East-Asian populations and Indo-Iranian speakers forming a cluster closer to Western Eurasians. The scattered position of Uzbeks across Turkic- and Indo-Iranian-speaking populations may reflect their origins from the union of different tribes. We propose that the complex genetic landscape of Central Asian populations results from the movements of eastern, Turkic-speaking groups during historical times, into a long-lasting group of settled populations, which may be represented nowadays by Tajiks and Turkmen. Contrary to what is generally thought, our results suggest that the recurrent expansions of eastern nomadic groups did not result in the complete replacement of local populations, but rather into partial admixture.
位于欧亚大陆中心地带的中亚，在现代人从非洲早期扩散以及后来欧亚大陆不同人群的定居过程中都发挥了重要作用。因此，深入了解这一广阔地区的人类迁徙过程，将极大地增进我们对地域扩张、殖民和反复迁徙的理解，包括历史上中亚东部游牧民族扩张的影响。然而，尽管中亚可能具有重要意义，但我们对该地区遗传变异的程度和分布却知之甚少。我们在 27 个常染色体微卫星位点上对属于六个不同族群的 26 个人群（操印欧语和突厥语）进行了基因分型。遗传变异的分析表明，中亚的多样性主要由语言联系决定，其中操突厥语的人群与东亚人群关系更为密切，而操印欧语的人群则与西亚人群关系更为密切。乌兹别克人在突厥语和印欧语人群中的分散分布可能反映了他们起源于不同部落的融合。我们提出，中亚人群复杂的遗传格局是由于历史时期东部突厥语族群的迁徙，进入到一个长期定居的人群中，而现在的塔吉克人和土库曼人可能代表了这一人群。与普遍看法相反，我们的结果表明，东部游牧民族的反复扩张并没有导致当地人口的完全取代，而是导致了部分混合。
