Abstract
The area between the Dniester and the eastern Carpathian mountain range is at a geographical crossroads between eastern Europe and the Balkans. Little is known about the genetics of the population of this region. We performed an analysis of 12 binary autosomal markers in samples from six Dniester–Carpathian populations: two Moldavian, one Romanian, one Ukrainian and two Gagauz populations. The results were compared with gene frequency data from culturally and linguistically related populations from Southeast Europe and Central Asia. Small genetic differences were found among southeastern European populations (in particular those of the Dniester–Carpathian region). The observed homogeneity suggests either a very recent common ancestry of all southeastern European populations or strong gene flow between them. Despite this low level of differentiation, tree reconstruction and principle component analyses allowed a distinction between Balkan–Carpathian (Macedonians, Romanians, Moldavians, Ukrainians and Gagauzes) and eastern Mediterranean (Turks, Greeks and Albanians) population groups. The genetic affinities among Dniester–Carpathian and southeastern European populations do not reflect their linguistic relationships. The results indicate that the ethnic and genetic differentiations occurred in these regions to a considerable extent independently of each other. In particular, Gagauzes, a Turkic-speaking population, show closer affinities to their geographical neighbors than to other Turkic populations.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all donors for providing blood samples and to the people who contributed to their collection. We also thank B. Joffe, B. Nürnberger and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. E.W. was supported by FCI and DFG, W. S. by the Volkswagen-Foundation and DFG, and A.V. by the DAAD. V.S. and M.S. were supported by the Russian Federation for basic research (grant 03-04-4902) and by a grant from the President of the Russian Federation (grant MD-88.2003.04).
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Varzari, A., Stephan, W., Stepanov, V. et al. Population history of the Dniester–Carpathians: evidence from Alu markers. J Hum Genet 52, 308–316 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10038-007-0113-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10038-007-0113-x
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