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Afghanistan's Ethnic Groups Share a Y-Chromosomal Heritage Structured by Historical Events

Kayser, Manfred, Haber, Marc, Platt, Daniel E., Ashrafian Bonab, Maziar, Youhanna, Sonia C., Soria-Hernanz, David F., Martínez-Cruz, Begoña, Douaihy, Bouchra, Ghassibe-Sabbagh, Michella, Rafatpanah, Hoshang, Ghanbari, Mohsen, Whale, John, Balanovsky, Oleg, Wells, R. Spencer, Comas, David, Tyler-Smith, Chris and Zalloua, Pierre A. (2012) Afghanistan's Ethnic Groups Share a Y-Chromosomal Heritage Structured by Historical Events. PLoS ONE, 7 (3). e34288. ISSN 1932-6203

Item Type: Article

Abstract

Afghanistan has held a strategic position throughout history. It has been inhabited since the Paleolithic and later became a crossroad for expanding civilizations and empires. Afghanistan's location, history, and diverse ethnic groups present a unique opportunity to explore how nations and ethnic groups emerged, and how major cultural evolutions and technological developments in human history have influenced modern population structures. In this study we have analyzed, for the first time, the four major ethnic groups in present-day Afghanistan: Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, and Uzbek, using 52 binary markers and 19 short tandem repeats on the non-recombinant segment of the Y-chromosome. A total of 204 Afghan samples were investigated along with more than 8,500 samples from surrounding populations important to Afghanistan's history through migrations and conquests, including Iranians, Greeks, Indians, Middle Easterners, East Europeans, and East Asians. Our results suggest that all current Afghans largely share a heritage derived from a common unstructured ancestral population that could have emerged during the Neolithic revolution and the formation of the first farming communities. Our results also indicate that inter-Afghan differentiation started during the Bronze Age, probably driven by the formation of the first civilizations in the region. Later migrations and invasions into the region have been assimilated differentially among the ethnic groups, increasing inter-population genetic differences, and giving the Afghans a unique genetic diversity in Central Asia

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More Information

Depositing User: Leah Maughan

Identifiers

Item ID: 12942
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034288
ISSN: 1932-6203
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/12942
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034288

Users with ORCIDS

ORCID for Maziar Ashrafian Bonab: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-9833-7976

Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 04 Jan 2021 16:57
Last Modified: 04 Jan 2021 16:57

Contributors

Author: Maziar Ashrafian Bonab ORCID iD
Author: Manfred Kayser
Author: Marc Haber
Author: Daniel E. Platt
Author: Sonia C. Youhanna
Author: David F. Soria-Hernanz
Author: Begoña Martínez-Cruz
Author: Bouchra Douaihy
Author: Michella Ghassibe-Sabbagh
Author: Hoshang Rafatpanah
Author: Mohsen Ghanbari
Author: John Whale
Author: Oleg Balanovsky
Author: R. Spencer Wells
Author: David Comas
Author: Chris Tyler-Smith
Author: Pierre A. Zalloua

University Divisions

Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellbeing > School of Nursing and Health Sciences

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