A Y‐chromosomal comparison of the Madjars (Kazakhstan) and the Magyars (Hungary)

Abstract

The Madjars are a previously unstudied population from Kazakhstan who practice a form of local exogamy in which wives are brought in from neighboring tribes, but husbands are not, so the paternal lineages remain genetically isolated within the population. Their name bears a striking resemblance to the Magyars who have inhabited Hungary for over a millennium, but whose previous history is poorly understood. We have now carried out a genetic analysis of the population structure and relationships of the Madjars, and in particular have sought to test whether or not they show a genetic link with the Magyars. We concentrated on paternal lineages because of their isolation within the Madjars and sampled males representing all extant male lineages unrelated for more than eight generations (n = 45) in the Torgay area of Kazakhstan. The Madjars show evidence of extensive genetic drift, with 24/45 carrying the same 12-STR haplotype within haplogroup G. Genetic distances based on haplogroup frequencies were used to compare the Madjars with 37 other populations and showed that they were closest to the Hungarian population rather than their geographical neighbors. Although this finding could result from chance, it is striking and suggests that there could have been genetic contact between the ancestors of the Madjars and Magyars, and thus that modern Hungarians may trace their ancestry to Central Asia, instead of the Eastern Uralic region as previously thought.

Across language families: Genome diversity mirrors linguistic variation within Europe

“…In particular, concerning the real exception to our congruence pattern, notice that the presence in modern Hungarians of DNA markers currently common in Northern and Central Asia has been interpreted as a consequence of westward gene flow in Medieval times (Csányi et al, 2008; Bíró et al, 2009; Hellenthal et al, 2014); this is obviously connected with historical migrations in the 9th century and with the fact that the current language is closely related to the Ugric‐speaking communities along the Ob river. However, the current low frequency of those markers is not what one would expect to observe, had a substantial demographic replacement occurred (Nadasi et al, 2007; Hellenthal et al, 2014).…”

Mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal profile of the Kazakh population from East Kazakhstan

“…Partially, this paternal genetic uniformity could be explained by local traditions, such as exogamy, that were strictly followed in the past and played a crucial role in conservation of the unique genetic properties. The population of Madjar from Torgay area had been following same traditions in the past aiming to avoid inbreeding (3). Nonetheless, mtDNA genetic diversity in this population is equivalent to that in other Central Asian populations.…”

“…The studies conducted in the region, based on scarce genetic data, indicate that the Central Asia population is a mix of Eastern and Western populations (1,2). Kazakhstan is a vast country, which has throughout history been inhabited by different nomadic tribes such as the Argyn, Dughlat, Jalayir, Kerei, Kipchak, Madjar, Naiman, and others (3). The Kazakh ethnic group was formed in the 15th century under a huge infulence of the Mongol Empire (4).…”

New clustering methods for population comparison on paternal lineages

“…4) characterised by the dominance of Hg G, with limited presence of I2, R1a and R1b. Madjars in Kazakhstan are partly an outlier as they have high proportion of G1 (Bíró et al 2009), while the Abkhazians, Balkars, Cherkess, Georgians and Ossetians are dominated by G2 (Rootsi et al 2012). In this case, MRP16 separated Abkhazian, Ossetian and Madjar populations from the Georgian, Cherkess and Balkar Cluster.…”