Genomic study of the Ket: a Paleo-Eskimo-related ethnic group with significant ancient North Eurasian ancestry

Abstract

The Kets, an ethnic group in the Yenisei River basin, Russia, are considered the last nomadic hunter-gatherers of Siberia, and Ket language has no transparent affiliation with any language family. We investigated connections between the Kets and Siberian and North American populations, with emphasis on the Mal’ta and Paleo-Eskimo ancient genomes, using original data from 46 unrelated samples of Kets and 42 samples of their neighboring ethnic groups (Uralic-speaking Nganasans, Enets, and Selkups). We genotyped over 130,000 autosomal SNPs, identified mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal haplogroups, and performed high-coverage genome sequencing of two Ket individuals. We established that Nganasans, Kets, Selkups, and Yukaghirs form a cluster of populations most closely related to Paleo-Eskimos in Siberia (not considering indigenous populations of Chukotka and Kamchatka). Kets are closely related to modern Selkups and to some Bronze and Iron Age populations of the Altai region, with all these groups sharing a high degree of Mal’ta ancestry. Implications of these findings for the linguistic hypothesis uniting Ket and Na-Dene languages into a language macrofamily are discussed.

Na-Dene populations descend from the Paleo-Eskimo migration into America

“…2). This result is expected for Saqqaq, since its close relationship to the Arctic and Siberian groups was shown by various methods 6,7,11,15 . We also note that in our analysis the 12,600-years-old Clovis ancient genome 14 does not differ from modern South and Central American populations.…”

“…Sample collection and DNA extraction of 58 newly reported samples Saliva samples of four Siberian ethnic groups (Enets, Kets, Nganasans, Selkups) were collected and DNA extractions were performed as described in Flegontov et al 15 Sampling locations and additional information is provided in Suppl. Table 3.…”

“…Text 1). In all previous analyses 6,11,15 and in haplotype-based analyses in this study (Fig. 1, Suppl.…”

“…Table 1). The Arctic group was split into the Siberian and American Arctic subgroups; Siberians with extensive ancient North Eurasian ancestry 15,16 were considered separately and referred to as Siberians+ANE, while other Siberian groups were called 'core Siberians'. The breakdown of ethnic groups into these metapopulations was supported by ADMIXTURE analysis on unlinked SNPs (Suppl.…”

Mitochondrial Genome Diversity in the Central Siberian Plateau with Particular Reference to Prehistory of Northernmost Eurasia

“…Here, we were assembled novel data on unique native Siberian populations, the Ket, Todzhi, and Tofalar. The timing and whereabouts of Yenisei Ket population history are long-standing issues [21,44,58]. The new mtDNA data provide a clearer picture of the number and timing of founding lineages.…”