The North Eurasian forest and forest-steppe zones have sustained millennia of sociocultural connections among northern peoples, but much of their history is poorly understood. In particular, the genomic formation of populations that speak Uralic and Yeniseian languages today is unknown. Here, by generating genome-wide data for 180 ancient individuals spanning this region, we show that the Early-to-Mid-Holocene hunter-gatherers harboured a continuous gradient of ancestry from fully European-related in the Baltic, to fully East Asian-related in the Transbaikal. Contemporaneous groups in Northeast Siberia were off-gradient and descended from a population that was the primary source for Native Americans, which then mixed with populations of Inland East Asia and the Amur River Basin to produce two populations whose expansion coincided with the collapse of pre-Bronze Age population structure. Ancestry from the first population, Cis-Baikal Late Neolithic-Bronze Age (Cisbaikal_LNBA), is associated with Yeniseian-speaking groups and those that admixed with them, and ancestry from the second, Yakutia Late Neolithic-Bronze Age (Yakutia_LNBA), is associated with migrations of prehistoric Uralic speakers. We show that Yakutia_LNBA first dispersed westwards from the Lena River Basin around 4,000 years ago into the Altai-Sayan region and into West Siberian communities associated with Seima-Turbino metallurgy-a suite of advanced bronze casting techniques that expanded explosively from the Altai1. The 16 Seima-Turbino period individuals were diverse in their ancestry, also harbouring DNA from Indo-Iranian-associated pastoralists and from a range of hunter-gatherer groups. Thus, both cultural transmission and migration were key to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon, which was involved in the initial spread of early Uralic-speaking communities.

5 F Voino Yasenetsky Krasnoyarsk State Medical University Krasnoyarsk Russia

Arctic Research Center of Sakha Republic Yakutia Russia

BIOMICs Research Group Department of Zoology and Animal Cell Biology University of the Basque Country UPV EHU Vitoria Gasteiz Spain

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard Cambridge MA USA

Center of Human Ecology Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Russian Academy of Science Moscow Russia

CIAS Department of Life Sciences University of Coimbra Coimbra Portugal

Department of Anthropology Harvard University Cambridge MA USA

Department of Anthropology Washington University in St Louis St Louis MO USA

Department of Archaeogenetics Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig Germany

Department of Archaeology Ethnography and Museology Altai State University Barnaul Russia

Department of Archaeology of Central Asia and the Caucasus Institute for the History of Material Culture of Russian Academy of Science Saint Petersburg Russia

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

Department of Biology University of La Verne La Verne CA USA

Department of Evolutionary Anthropology University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Department of Genetics Evolution and Environment University College London Genetics Institute University College London London UK

Department of Genetics Harvard Medical School Boston MA USA

Department of Genetics Yale Medical School New Haven CT USA

Department of Historical Studies University of Gothenburg Gothenburg Sweden

Department of Human Evolutionary Biology Harvard University Cambridge MA USA

Department of Integrative Biology University of Texas Austin TX USA

Department of Recreational Geography Service Tourism and Hospitality Institute of Geography Altai State University Barnaul Russia

Department of Statistics and Data Science University of Texas Austin TX USA

Diamond and Precious Metals Geology Institute Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yakutsk Russia

Historical Ecological and Cultural Association 'Povolzhye' Samara Russia

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Harvard Medical School Boston MA USA

Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Human Population Genetics Laboratory Research Center for Medical Genetics Moscow Russia

Ikerbasque Basque Foundation of Science Bilbao Spain

Independent Researcher Kemerovo Russia

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Novosibirsk Russia

Institute of History and Archaeology Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yekaterinburg Russia

Institute of Natural Sciences M K Ammosov North Eastern Federal University Yakutsk Russia

Institute of Parasitology Biology Centre CAS České Budějovice Czech Republic

Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yekaterinburg Russia

Institute of Studies the Humanities and Problems of Indigenous People of the North FIC Yakutsk Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yakutsk Russia

Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local Lore Krasnoyarsk Russia

Laboratory of Archaeogenetics Nazarbayev University Astana Kazakhstan

Laboratory of Human Genetics National Center for Biotechnology Astana Kazakhstan

Laboratory of Human Molecular Genetics Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Novosibirsk Russia

LLC 'Archaeology of the East European Plain' Moscow Russia

National Research Tomsk State University Tomsk Russia

Samara State University of Social Sciences and Education Samara Russia

School of Archaeology University College Dublin Dublin Ireland

Servizio di Bioarcheologia Museo delle Civiltà Rome Italy

Siberian State University of Physical Education and Sport Omsk Russia

Spatial Analysis Interpretation and Exploration Laboratory Washington University in St Louis St Louis MO USA

Tyumen Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Problems of Northern Development Tyumen Russia

Ural Federal University Yekaterinburg Russia

Utrecht University Utrecht Netherlands

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