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Abstract
Background: Southern Siberian populations, including the Buryat, have been of great interest in investigating the exchanges between Eastern and Western Eurasia and understanding the peopling of Siberia and the New World.
Aim: Previous studies mainly employed a phylogenetic approach, and thus used pooled samples to detect a maximum of variability. As different sampling strategies may result in different pictures of a population's evolutionary history, we proposed in this study to focus on a local Buryat population selected on the basis of geographical, archaeological and ethno-historical data.
Subjects and methods: This study investigated a local population from the Barguzin Valley, on the north-western shores of Lake Baikal identified as the most likely place of Buryat origin. We analysed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) RFLPs markers, HVS-I and HVS-II sequences to discuss the genetic variability of this population, and to compare our local sample with pooled Buryat samples and neighbouring Siberian populations.
Results: The Barguzin Buryat sample shows depressed neutrality scores compared to the pooled Buryat sample, and different genetic affinities with the Mongol and Turco-Evenk populations.
Conclusion: These results underline the need to use local samples, in addition to pooled samples, to investigate the history of human populations at the micro-evolutionary level.
Acknowledgements
We thank E. Guitard for her technical assistance, J.M. Dugoujon, M.H. Crawford and R. Hamayon for scholarly discussions, Z. Zinaida and K. Wis for their valid help. We also thank the two reviewers for critical comments on the paper. Our appreciation goes to the population of the Barguzin Valley for their participation in our study.
Declaration of interest: This work was supported by the BQR 2005 (Bonus Quality Research) of the University Paul Sabatier, by the GIP-ANR (French National Research Agency) JC05_62756, and by the Franco-Spanish cooperation program egide ‘Picasso’ N13528-PJ-2007. The authors confirm no conflict of interest.