The indigenous populations of inner Eurasia-a huge geographic region covering the central Eurasian steppe and the northern Eurasian taiga and tundra-harbour tremendous diversity in their genes, cultures and languages. In this study, we report novel genome-wide data for 763 individuals from Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. We furthermore report additional damage-reduced genome-wide data of two previously published individuals from the Eneolithic Botai culture in Kazakhstan (~5,400 BP). We find that present-day inner Eurasian populations are structured into three distinct admixture clines stretching between various western and eastern Eurasian ancestries, mirroring geography. The Botai and more recent ancient genomes from Siberia show a decrease in contributions from so-called 'ancient North Eurasian' ancestry over time, which is detectable only in the northern-most 'forest-tundra' cline. The intermediate 'steppe-forest' cline descends from the Late Bronze Age steppe ancestries, while the 'southern steppe' cline further to the south shows a strong West/South Asian influence. Ancient genomes suggest a northward spread of the southern steppe cline in Central Asia during the first millennium BC. Finally, the genetic structure of Caucasus populations highlights a role of the Caucasus Mountains as a barrier to gene flow and suggests a post-Neolithic gene flow into North Caucasus populations from the steppe.

5 N Karazin Kharkiv National University Kharkiv Ukraine

Astrakhan Branch Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation Astrakhan Russia

Belgorod State University Belgorod Russia

Center for Advanced Technologies Ministry of Innovational Development Tashkent Uzbekistan

Department of Anthropology and Ethnology Xiamen University Xiamen China

Department of Archaeogenetics Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Jena Germany

Department of Archaeology University of Exeter Exeter UK

Department of Biology and Ecology Faculty of Science University of Ostrava Ostrava Czech Republic

Department of Genetics Harvard Medical School Boston MA USA

Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology Al Farabi Kazakh National University Almaty Kazakhstan

Department of Population Genetics Institute of General Genetics and Cytology Science Committee Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan Almaty Kazakhstan

Estonian Biocentre Institute of Genomics University of Tartu Tartu Estonia

Eurasia3angle Research Group Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Jena Germany

Faculty of Geography Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow Russia

Faculty of Science University of South Bohemia and Biology Centre Czech Academy of Sciences České Budĕjovice Czech Republic

Federal State Budgetary Institution 'Research Centre for Medical Genetics' Moscow Russia

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Harvard Medical School Boston MA USA

Institute of Archeology and Steppe Civilization Al Farabi Kazakh National University Almaty Kazakhstan

Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow Russia

Institute of Strategic Research of the Republic of Bashkortostan Ufa Russia

Kemerovo State Medical University Kemerovo Russia

Kuban State Medical University Krasnodar Russia

Laboratory of Ethnogenomics Institute of Molecular Biology National Academy of Sciences Yerevan Armenia

Leprosy Research Institute Astrakhan Russia

Mongolian Academy of Medical Sciences Ulaanbaatar Mongolia

National Center for Biotechnology Astana Kazakhstan

National Laboratory Astana Nazarbayev University Astana Kazakhstan

Northern State Medical University Arkhangelsk Russia

Research Institute of Medical and Social Problems and Control Healthcare Department of Tuva Republic Kyzyl Russia

School of Biological Sciences Seoul National University Seoul Republic of Korea

Transbaikal State University Chita Russia

Udmurt Institute of History Language and Literature Udmurt Federal Research Center Ural Branch Russian Academy of Sciences Izhevsk Russia

Vavilov Institute of General Genetics Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow Russia

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Nat Ecol Evol. 2019 Jun;3(6):877-878. doi: 10.1038/s41559-019-0876-4. PubMed

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