The Y-chromosome Gene Pool of the Coast-dwellers’ Three Populations of Arkhangelsk Oblast Was Researched

The Y-chromosome gene pool of the three northernmost Russian populations was researched for the first time. Those are the coast-dwellers of Arkhangelsk Oblast: the Onega Coast, the Summer Coast and the western fragment of the Winter Coast of the White Sea.

The article of the team of authors of the RCMG’s human population genetics laboratory under the guidance of the Holder of an Advanced Doctorate in Biological Sciences, professor Elena Balanovskaya, was published in the journal «Vestnik of the RSMU».
During the expedition the employees of the human population genetics laboratory of the Research Centre for Medical Genetics examined the inhabited areas of the Onega Peninsula (the Onega Coast and the Summer Coast) and the western (Onega) fragment of the Winter Coast and collected material for research.

Comparative analysis of the Y-chromosome gene pool of the coast-dwellers and other populations in Northern Europe showed that the coast-dwellers of the Onega Coast were genetically similar to a wide range of Finnish-language peoples in the North-Eastern Europe and those Russian populations that have a strong pre-Slavic substrate. The Summer Coast coast-dwellers were close to the gene pools of Scandinavia. The coast-dwellers of the Winter Coast are similar only to isolated populations of the Finns and the Swedes. None of the coast-dwellers populations has a genetic similarity to the population of Novgorod, with which the origin of the coast-dwellers is traditionally associated.
In addition to gene drift, it has been suggested that the diversity of the pre-Slavic population that underlies the gene pool of each population, as well as later gene flows, are the cause of the coast-dwellers populations’ distinct diversity.

Follow the link to explore more: https://vestnik.rsmu.press/archive/2022/5/2/abstract?lang=ru