Lev Gumilev – Prehistory of the Huns. Ethnogenesis of the Kyrgyz

Photography by Vlad Ushakov

“When studying the earliest period of Hun history, the question of the ancient population of Siberia and its territorial range unexpectedly gains significance. As will be shown below, the Huns are first mentioned in Chinese historical records in 1764 BCE.

Subsequent mentions of them appear in 822 BCE and 304 BCE. Nearly fifteen hundred years of Hun history remain in obscurity. To illuminate this period, we must turn to the archaeology of Siberia.

In the 2nd millennium BCE, archaeologists identify two synchronous yet distinct cultures in Southern Siberia: the Glazkov culture in the east and the Andronovo culture in the west. “In the Baikal region, there lived a group of closely related tribes who were most likely the ancestors of modern Evenks, Evens, or Yukaghirs.

Their culture was strikingly similar to that of the inhabitants of the upper Amur River, Northern Manchuria, and Mongolia, extending as far as the Great Wall of China and Ordos. It is therefore possible that this vast region was inhabited by culturally related tribes of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age hunters and fishermen… who likely spoke related tribal languages”.

Later, some ancestors of the Huns encountered and intermixed with the southern group of these tribes—the carriers of the Glazkov culture. The western half of Southern Siberia and Kazakhstan, up to the Ural Mountains, was occupied by the Andronovo culture from 1700 to 1200 BCE.

The carriers of this culture, who belonged to the Caucasoid race, took control of the Minusinsk Basin in the 18th century BCE and nearly merged with the Glazkov people along the Yenisei River. The Andronovans were farmers and sedentary livestock herders. They had knowledge of bronze metallurgy, and their graves contained numerous finely ornamented clay vessels.

The Andronovo culture was connected to the West. “The striking resemblance between Andronovo sites and the Srubnaya culture of the Lower Volga, Don, and Donets steppes has been repeatedly noted”. However, neither the Andronovans nor the Glazkov people played the dominant role in Southern Siberia during the 2nd millennium BCE.

As mentioned earlier, the Dingling people inhabited the ‘sandy land of Shasai,’ which lay on the outskirts of the Gobi Desert. They also lived in the Sayan-Altai Highlands, the Minusinsk Basin, and Tuva.

Their physical characteristics were described as follows: medium to tall stature, strong and sturdy build, elongated face, fair skin with a reddish hue on the cheeks, blond hair, a prominent straight nose—often aquiline—and light-colored eyes”.

These conclusions, drawn from written sources, have been corroborated by archaeological findings. The Sayan-Altai region was the homeland of the Afanasievo culture, which dates to approximately 2000 BCE. Anthropologically, the Afanasievans represented a distinct racial group.

They had “a sharply protruding nose, a relatively low face, low eye sockets, and a broad forehead—all of these features indicate their affiliation with the European branch. However, the Afanasievans differed from modern Europeans in having a significantly broader face.

In this regard, they resemble Upper Paleolithic skulls from Western Europe, that is, the Cro-Magnon type in the broader sense of the term”.

The successors of the Afanasievans were the tribes of the Tagar culture, which survived until the 3rd century BCE. This suggests that the Afanasievans—Dinglings—preserved their culture for centuries despite invasions by foreign peoples.

Around 1200 BCE, the Andronovo culture in the Minusinsk steppes was replaced by a new culture, the Karasuk culture, brought by migrants from the south, from Northern China, specifically from the banks of the Yellow River. For the first time, Chinese cultural influences penetrated Western Siberia. This was not merely a case of borrowing elements.

With the arrival of the new culture, a new racial type also appeared in burial sites—a mix of Mongoloids and Europoids, where the Europoids were brachycephalic, and the Mongoloids had narrow faces, belonging to the “Far Eastern race of the Asian branch”.

This racial type had already formed in Northern China during the Yangshao period. Once in their new territory, they further intermingled, but for us, it is particularly important to note that “the people who migrated to Southern Siberia were already a mixed population. The narrow-faced southern Mongoloids were blended with a brachycephalic Europoid type whose origins remain unclear, as does its classification within racial taxonomy”.

A natural comparison arises between this mysterious brachycephalic Europoid element that arrived from China and the Di people. However, the presence of various types of Europoid elements in both Siberia and China suggests the following conclusion: the Di and the Dinglings were peoples of the European racial branch but belonged to different racial types—similar, yet not identical.

G. E. Grumm-Grzhimailo, who equated the Di with the Dinglings, observed: “The long-headed race that inhabited Southern Siberia during the Neolithic period was unlikely to have had any genetic connection with the Di tribes, that is, the Dinglings, who, as we know, had lived since ancient times in the Yellow River Basin.

Rather, this long-headed race may represent a population whose remnants have survived to the present day in the Far East of Asia (the Ainu—L.G.)”. However, the Chinese identified this long-headed race specifically as the Dinglings, and they referred to the Sayan Mountains as ‘Dinglin’.

The Dinglings disappeared from the historical stage in the mid-2nd century CE, while the Dili—the steppe branch of the Di—emerged in the 4th century CE. It is reasonable to assume that the Yenisei Kyrgyz were primarily connected with the indigenous peoples of Siberia, the Dinglings, rather than with the Di, who had migrated from the south.

The southern branch of the Dinglings, who migrated south of the Sayan Mountains, intermingled with the ancestors of the Huns. It is no coincidence that the Chinese considered prominent noses a distinguishing feature of the Huns. When Shi Min ordered the extermination of all the Huns in 350 CE, “many Chinese with high noses perished as well”.

Thus, the Dinglings were the people with whom the southern ancestors of the Huns mixed.

Chinese historical records preserve descriptions of the life of the Hu, the ancestors of the Huns, during their prehistoric period. This is particularly interesting because, in this account, the Hu differ significantly from the historical Huns in their social structure but resemble them in aspects of daily life.

In ancient times, the Huns apparently had no form of state organization. Individual families roamed the steppe with their herds, consisting primarily of horses, large and small cattle, and, to a lesser extent, camels and donkeys.

However, a nomadic lifestyle did not mean random wandering across the steppe. Nomads migrated in the spring to summer pastures in the mountains, where the lush alpine meadows attracted both people and livestock.

In autumn, they descended to flat, low-snow steppe areas, where their animals could graze freely throughout the winter. The locations of summer and winter pastures were strictly designated and constituted the property of a clan or family. This was also true for the Huns.

It is important to note, however, that Sima Qian may have projected onto the distant past certain aspects of Hun life that were so familiar to him that he could not conceive of them being otherwise.

It seems likely that he exaggerated the role of nomadic pastoralism in the Hu economy. Nonetheless, completely denying the presence of animal husbandry among the steppe dwellers of Inner Mongolia during the Neolithic era would be unfounded.

The real question is the extent to which this livestock herding was truly nomadic.

The most important observations regarding this period of Hun history include the following:

“All those capable of wielding a bow are enlisted in the armored cavalry...Everyone engages in military training to prepare for raids… The strong eat the best and the fattiest foods; the elderly consume the leftovers.

The young and robust are highly respected, while the old and weak are held in low regard… They usually address each other by name; they have no family names or clan surnames”.

All of this suggests a weakening of clan ties and the dominance of physical strength over tradition and custom. It is especially significant that during the era of clan-based society, the source explicitly notes the absence of family surnames. In contrast, for the later historical period, it clearly affirms the complete dominance of clan relationships (see below).

This suggests that the above-mentioned observations refer to a transitional period when the ancestors of the Huns were united not by common ancestry but by a shared historical destiny.

The Neighbors of the Ancient Huns

To the north of the Huns lived the Dinglings. They inhabited both slopes of the Sayan Range, stretching from the Yenisei to the Selenga River.

On the Yenisei were the Kyrgyz (referred to as Qigu in Chinese sources)—a people that emerged from the mixture of the Dinglings with an unknown tribe called the Gyan-Gun (Yenisei Huns). To their west, on the northern slopes of the Altai, lived the Kipchaks (Kyueshe in Chinese), who closely resembled the Dinglings in appearance and were likely related to them.”

— Lev Gumilev, The Huns: Central Asia in Ancient Times

Supplementary Note from KAF:

“The Kyrgyz are among the most ancient peoples of Central Asia. Among the peoples currently living in Central Asia, there appears to be none whose name has been mentioned in historical records as early as theirs.”

— Vasily Vladimirovich Bartold

“The ancestors of the Kyrgyz tribes were linked by their origins to the earliest tribal unions of the Saka, Wusun, Dingling, and Hun peoples.”

— Saul Mendelievich Abramzon

DNA 🧬

Wen, Shao-qing; Du, Pan-xin, Nature

“Historically, ancient Kyrgyz were considered to be the Yenisei Kyrgyz that may perhaps be concerned with the Tashtyk culture.

They lived on the upper reaches of Yenisei River in the south of the Minusinsk Basin and dispersed among many stock-raising peoples of the Sayano-Altai from the 6th to 13th century.

(KAF supplement:

Alexander Bernshtam: “The first records of the ancient Gyan-Gunn-Kyrgyz date back to approximately 209-201 BCE, when, according to Chinese chronicles, the Hunnic chieftain Modu Shanyu subdued several tribes, among them the Dinlins and the Gégūn (aka Gyan-Gunn or Jyan-Kün)

Sima Qian Records of the Grand Historian Vol. 110  "後北服渾庾、屈射、丁零、鬲昆、薪犁之國。…… 是時漢初定中國，……。" translation: "Later in the North [Modun] subdued the Hunyu, Qushe, Dingling, Gyan-Gun, and Xinli nations. [...] It was when the Han had just stabilized the Central Region, [...]. [i.e. 202 BCE]")

Notably, according to the records of Xin Tangshu, the majority of the Jyan -Gun (Kyrgyz) people are “all tall and big and have red hair, white faces, and green eyes”and the ones with “dark hair and eyes”claimed to be the descendants of Li Ling, grandson of the famous general Li Guang during the Han Dynasty.

The Kyrgyz are an admixed population between the East and the West. Different patterns have been observed in the patrilineal gene pool of the Kyrgyz.

Extremely low Y-diversity and the presence of a high-frequency 68.9% Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a1-M17 (a diagnostic Indo-Iranian marker are striking features of Kyrgyz populations in central Asia.

Moreover, recent genome-wide SNP study on Central Asian Kyrgyz by Petr Triska et al. suggested that high levels of shared IBD blocks in Central Asian Kyrgyz and other Altaic-speaking populations from Southern Siberia (Tuva, Buryat) and North Asia (Yakut), support their recently formed common genetic core in Southern Siberia.

As reported in the other Kyrgyz populations, the highest frequencies of Haplogroup R1a1a-M17+, M198+, M458−were also present in the Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz (Urumchi Kyrgyz: 56% and Kizilsu Kyrgyz: 46%).

This haplogroup generally was frequent in a wide geographic area extending from South Asia to Central East Europe and South Siberia. Zerjal et al. postulated that it could be the most evident male genetic legacy of the “Kurgan Culture”population expansion.

We further tested the diagnostic markers R1a1a1b1a-Z282 and R1a1a1b2-Z93.

Of the 143 Kyrgyz R1a1a-M17+, M198+, M458−samples, more than 90% were assigned to Central Asian lineage R1a1a1b2-Z93 whereas the rest belonged to European lineage R1a1a1b1a-Z282.

Among the Asian R1a1a1b2-Z93 lineages, R1a1a1b2a2-Z2125 is quite common in Kyrgyzstan and Afghan Pashtuns (40%), and less frequent in other Afghan ethnic groups and some Caucasus and Iran populations (10%).

Notably, the basal lineage R1a1a1b2-Z93* is commonly distributed in the South Siberian Altai region of Russia.

Three competing hypotheses have been debated regarding the origins of the Kyrgyz:

•an upper Yenisei River (Minusinsk basin) origin, advocated by Russian academician G.F. Miller (1705–1783) in his History of Siberia

•a Tenir Too Mountains origin, which holds that the Kyrgyz were the indigenous Central Asian,

•and a multiple independent origin, suggesting that the Kyrgyz consisted of at least two ethnic groups of Central Asian.

In this study, a set of 108 Y chromosome SNPs and 17 or 24 Y chromosome microsatellites was employed to trace the genetic components of the Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz paternal gene pool.

We found that the Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz were characterized by the presence of two major Y chromosome haplogroups (R1a1a1b2a2a-Z2125 and C2b1a3a1-F3796).

Haplogroup R1a1a1b2a2a-Z2125 was the most common lineage Kyrgyz. It was frequent in several Central Asian populations.

The oldest specimen (SVP27, Utyevka VI, kurgan 7, grave 1 [2200–1900 BCE]) of this lineage originated from the Early Bronze Age Potapovka culture (closely related to the Sintashta culture) site from south of the Sok River in the Samara oblast, Russia.

According to the published ancient DNA data, we found that, in Middle Bronze Age, Haplogroup R1a1a1b2a2a- Z2125 was mainly found in Sintashta culture population from Kamennyi Ambar 5 cemetery, western Siberia, in Fedorovo type of the Andronovo culture or Karasuk culture population from Minusinsk Basin, southern Siberia, and in Andronovo culture populations from Maitan, Ak-Moustafa, Aktogai, Kazakh Mys, Satan, Oy-Dzhaylau III, Karagash 2, Dali, and Zevakinskiy stone fence,

Kazakhstan.

Subsequently, from Late Bronze Age to Medieval Age, this lineage was observed among Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Hungary and Moldova, except for Russia and Kazakhstan.

Notably, in Tianshan area of Kyrgyzstan, the lineage was seen in Scythian_Saka and Hun people at 259-93 BCE and 286–406 CE, respectively.

Therefore, on basis of the spatial and temporal distribution of haplogroup R1a1a1b2a2a-Z2125, some Kyrgyz might have a Siberian origin.”

-Wen, Shao-qing; Du, Pan-xin; Sun, Chang; Cui, Wei; Xu, Yi-ran; Meng, Hai-liang; Shi, Mei-sen; Zhu, Bo-feng; Li, Hui (March 2022), "Dual origins of the Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz: the admixture of Bronze age Siberian and Medieval Niru'un Mongolian Y chromosomes", Nature

Igor Rozhansky from Yokkaichi Research Center, Tokyo, Japan

“The land of present-day Kyrgyzstan, inhabited at the turn of the era by Saka and Wusun tribes, was conquered by the Yenisei Kyrgyz (Khakas) in the 8th century AD. Since Kyrgyzstan is a natural mountain fortress of the Tian Shan, it is an island-like community, similar to the Lithuanian Tatars, with high genetic inertia and limited external influences.

Essentially, all four groups are Scythians: the Saka-Scythians, the Wusun-Scythians, the Yenisei Kyrgyz-Scythians, and the Lithuanian Tatar-Scythians.”*

— Igor Rozhansky, Yokkaichi Research Center, Tokyo, Japan, “Lithuanian Tatars: DNA Ancestors Traced to the Eurasian Steppes”

Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang, University of Toronto, Canada

“The Xin Tangshu states that “their (the Kyrgyz) language and script were identical to those of the Uyghurs” (其文字言語，與回鶻正同) (Xin Tangshu 217b.6148). It also notes the distinct physical phenotype of the Kyrgyz.

The Xin Tangshu reports: “The people are all tall and large, with red hair, fair skin, and green eyes” (人皆長大，赤髮、皙面、綠瞳) (Xin Tangshu 217b.6147).

According to the Xin Tangshu, the neighboring tribe of Boma (駁馬) or Bila (弊剌) resembled the Kyrgyz, although their language was different (Xin Tangshu 217b.6146).

This may indicate that the Kyrgyz were originally a non-Turkic people who became Turkicized during the Kök Türks period, at least partially through intertribal marriages. The Xin Tangshu states that “the Kök Türks sent women as wives to [the leaders of the Kyrgyz]” (突厥以女妻其酋豪) (Xin Tangshu 217b.6149).

Regarding Aré (阿熱), the ruler of the Kyrgyz who destroyed the Uyghur Khaganate, his wife was a Karluk woman, and his mother was a Türgesh (Xin Tangshu 217b.6149). Moreover, the Xin Tangshu states that the Kyrgyz “mixed with the Dingling” (其種雜丁零) (Xin Tangshu 217b.6146–47).

Haplogroup R1a1, more specifically, its subclade R1a1a1b2 (defined by mutation Z93), is the genetic marker of the Indo-European pastoralists, who migrated from modern-day Ukraine to modern-day Iran, India, the Kazakh steppes, the Tarim Basin, the Altai Mountains region, the Yenisei River region, and western Mongolia during the Bronze Age.

Naturally, R1a1, more specifically, its subclade R1a1a1b2 (R1a-Z93), occurs at high frequency among the Turkic peoples now residing in the Yenisei River and the Altai Mountains regions in Russia.

Compared to the Tuvinians, the Khakass (whose name was created by the Soviets from Xiajiasi (黠戛斯), a Chinese name for Kyrgyz, since they were regarded as descending from the Kyrgyz have noticeably higher percentages of R1a1 (35.2%) and much lower percentages of haplogroups C (1.1%) and Q (4%). However, N is also the most prevalent haplogroup (50%) of the Khakass (Gubina et al. 2013: 339; Shi et al. 2013)

As for the Altaians, the Altai-Kizhi (southern Altaians) are characterised by a high percentage of R1a1 (50%) and low to moderate percentages of C2 (20%), Q (16.7%) and N (4.2%) (Dulik et al. 2012: 234).

The major differences between the Khakass and the southern Altaians are the lower frequency of haplogroup N (in another study, haplogroup N is found at high frequency (32%) among the Altaians in general: see Gubina et al. 2013: 329, 339) and the higher frequencies of haplogroups C2 and Q among the latter.

The descent of the Kyrgyz (Kyrgyz) of the Tien Shan Mountains region (Kyrgyzstan) from the Yenisei Kyrgyz is debated among historians.

However, among the modern Turkic peoples, the former have the highest percentage of R1a1 (over 60%). Since the West Eurasian physiognomy of the Yenisei Kyrgyz recorded in the Xin Tangshu was in all likelihood a reflection of their Eurasian Indo-European marker R1a1a1b2 (R1a-Z93), one may conjecture that the Tien Shan Kyrgyz received their R1a1 marker from the Yenisei Kyrgyz. That is, the former are descended from the latter.

The other Y-chromosome haplogroups found among the Kyrgyz (Kyrgyz) are C2 (12~20%), O (0~15%) and N (0~4.5%).50 The lack of haplogroup Q among the Qirghiz (Kyrgyz) mostly distinguishes them from the Altaians.

During the Bronze Age and early Iron Age, the Yenisei River region was inhabited by Indo-Europeans. The dna study of 26 ancient human specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area dated from the middle of the second millennium bc to the fourth century ad shows that the Yenisei pastoralists mostly belonged to haplogroup R1a1 (Keyser et al. 2009: 401)

The high frequency of R1a1 among the modern-day Kyrgyz and Altaians may thus prove that they are descended from the Yenisei Kyrgyz. In addition, this may explain the reason why medieval Chinese histories depict the Kyrgyz as possessing West Eurasian physiognomy.

The Y-chromosomes of the Kök Türks have not been studied. After the collapse of the Second Türk Khaganate in 745 ce, the Kök Türks became dispersed and it is difficult to identify their modern descendants.

If they were indeed descended from the Eastern Scythians aka Saka (Suo) or related to the Kyrgyz, as the Zhoushu states (Zhoushu 50.908), the Ashina (royal Türkic dynasty, possibly related to the Turko-Jewish Khazar Khaganate, according to Peter B. Golden of Rutgers University) may have belonged to the R1a1 lineage.”

- Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang, University of Toronto, Canada, “A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples.

Volkov V.G., Kharkov V.N., Stepanov V.A. from Russian Academy of Science

“The Southern Altaians and the Tian Shan Kyrgyz are descendants of close relatives of the Yenisei Andronovans, most likely the descendants of the Altai Andronovans.

It is well known that linguists and ethnographers have long established a close linguistic and ethnic kinship between the Kyrgyz and the Southern Altaians.

Some historians believe that the Kyrgyz and the Southern Altaians once belonged to a single community.

The haplotypes of the carriers of the Andronovo and Tagar cultures show the greatest similarity with the haplotypes of the Southern Altaians and the Tian Shan Kyrgyz.

It is also highly probable that the spread of Indo-Iranian languages in this region is linked specifically to the R-L342.2 subclade.

At the same time, there is virtually no doubt that representatives of this subclade formed the core of the Indo-Aryans who ‘invaded’ India approximately 3,500 years ago.

Preliminary results indicate the following: while the distribution range of the SNP marker L342.2 is significant, it remains confined within Asia.

In Europe, this SNP marker is practically absent, except among populations of clear Asian origin, such as Ashkenazi Jews, as well as Lithuanian and Volga Tatars.

This SNP marker is more frequently found among the following population groups: Arabs (primarily those living on the border with Iraq), Turks, Pakistanis, North and South Indians, Afghans, Southern Altaians, Tian Shan Kyrgyz, and Bashkirs.

According to most researchers specializing in Aryan studies, the semi-nomadic pastoralist tribes of the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultural-historical communities represent the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.

These tribes are possibly the legendary Aryans who, in the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE, entered ancient Iran, crossed the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan, and invaded the Indus Valley.

The modal 15-marker haplotype of one of the Southern Altaian groups within haplogroup R1a1a, as presented in O.A. Balaganskaya’s study (Balaganskaya, 2011: 22), fully coincides with the modal haplotype of the most numerous R1a1a cluster among the Tian Shan Kyrgyz.”

— Volkov, Kharkov, Stepanov, Russian Academy of Science, “The Andronovo and Tagar Cultures in Light of Genetic Data.”

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