Gagauz people

[Bulat]

The DNA-genealogy of the Gagauzian surnames - 1. Dudoglo. J2b-Z1043 (str)

B. A. Muratov


According to Y-DNA data, about 60% of Gagauzes today have Autochthonous Balkan origin, these are haplogroups i2, R1a-Z283, E1b, J2b-Z1043, etc. Only 40% of Gagauzes have ethnically Turkic origin from Eurasian steppes. There lines are R1b-Z2103, G1, R1a-Z93, N1-P343 and these are descendants of Burdzhans, Pechenegs and Oghuz-Kipchaks.





Representatives of the surname Dudoglo belong to the subjet J2b-Z1043 (str), and have local origin of Balkan population of the region. In the 9th-13th centuries J2-Z1043 underwent the process of Turkization by the Burdzhans-Pechenegs and Oghuz-Kipchaks from Black Sea region.







The ethnic union and kinship ties of the local Balkan population with Burdzhans, Pechenegs and Oghuz-Kipchaks gave the Birth and Formation of the Gagauz people since the 9th century, and the Turkic language from the IX century and the Christian faith since the 13th century defined the national identity and originality of the Gagauzes among other peoples of the Balkans and the Black Sea region.

Full version of article (look at this url)
http://suyun.info/index.php?LANG=ENG&p=4_17042017_4_1

[Onur Dincer]

The most comprehensive and detailed study so far on Gagauz Y-chromosomes is Varzari et al. 2009. It shows that Gagauz Y-chromosomes come predominantly from Balkan natives with maybe some small influence from historical Anatolian immigrants (not necessarily Turkic though) on some of their G and R1b haplogroups. Here are some important sections from that paper, beginning with the abstract:

"The Gagauzes are a small Turkish-speaking ethnic group living mostly in southern Moldova and northeastern Bulgaria. The origin of the Gagauzes is obscure. They may be descendants of the Turkic nomadic tribes from the Eurasian steppes, as suggested by the ‘‘Steppe’’ hypothesis, or have a complex Anatolian-steppe origin, as postulated by the ‘‘Seljuk’’ or ‘‘Anatolian’’ hypothesis. To distinguish these hypotheses, a sample of 89 Y-chromosomes representing two Gagauz populations from the Republic of Moldova was analyzed for 28 binary and seven STR polymorphisms. In the gene pool of the Gagauzes a total of 15 Y-haplogroups were identified, the most common being I-P37 (20.2%), R-M17 (19.1%), G-M201 (13.5%), R-M269 (12.4%), and E-M78 (11.1%). The present Gagauz populations were compared with other Balkan, Anatolian, and Central Asian populations by means of genetic distances, nonmetric multidimentional scaling and analyses of molecular variance. The analyses showed that Gagauzes belong to the Balkan populations, suggesting that the Gagauz language represents a case of language replacement in southeastern Europe. Interestingly, the detailed study of microsatellite haplotypes revealed some sharing between the Gagauz and Turkish lineages, providing some support of the hypothesis of the ‘‘Seljuk origin’’ of the Gagauzes. The faster evolving microsatellite loci showed that the two Gagauz samples investigated do not represent a homogeneous group. This finding matches the cultural and linguistic heterogeneity of the Gagauzes well, suggesting a crucial role of social factors in shaping the Gagauz Y-chromosome pool and possibly also of effects of genetic drift."

"Haplogroup frequencies in the Gagauz samples and in the pooled sample are reported in Table 2. A total of 23 of the 28 genotyped binary polymorphisms were informative and defined 15 distinct haplogroups. Two major haplogroups in Gagauz males are haplogroup I-P37 and haplogroup R-M17, comprising 20.2% and 19.1%, respectively, of all Gagauz Y-chromosomes. These were followed by haplogroups G-M201 (13.5%), R-M269 (12.4%), and E-M78 (11.2%). All of the remaining lineages were present at frequencies of less than 5% in the Gagauz paternal gene pool. No lineages representing distant areas (Central/East Asia or Africa) were found in the present study. The haplogroup distributions were similar in the two samples (exact test; P 5 0.1028) and were in agreement with those reported previously for the Gagauz population (Nasidze et al., 2007) or neighboring populations (Supp Info Table 1). Although Y-haplogoup distribution patterns in two Gagauz populations were not significantly different from each other and from those in other southeastern European populations (exact test; P > 0.05), we note a twofold higher frequency of the R-M17 haplogroup in the Etulia sample compared with samples from Kongaz and Comrat (Nasidze et al., 2007), as well as an increased frequency of the G-M201 haplogroup in the two studied samples compared with most Balkan populations, including the Gagauzes from Comrat. The Gagauzes in total are characterized by high haplogroup diversity, comparable with other groups from southeastern Europe (Supporting Information Table 1) that exceed diversity values from other European provinces whose gene pools are dominated by certain haplogroups."

"Haplotype diversities in the total sample of the Gagauzes (0.979) and in the sample from Kongaz (0.989) were among the values observed in the Balkan ethnic groups (Supporting Information Table 2). The diversity in the Gagauzes from Etulia was lower (0.965); however, this did not differ significantly from other Balkan populations (T-test; t value 5 21.429; df 5 13; P 5 0.177)."

"We used genetic distance analysis to compare the present data with those reported for Balkan, Anatolian, and Central Asian populations (Supporting Information Table 1). Pairwise FST comparisons based on the Y-haplogroup frequencies showed that the Gagauz samples were very similar to each other (P 5 0.26) and to other Balkan populations (Supporting Information Table 3). They were less similar to Turkish samples, and most distant to Central Asian groups. All pairwise differences between the Gagauz and the Turkic samples, including those from Anatolia, were statistically significant (P < 0.05). The MDS analysis based on the FST distance matrix summarizes these patterns (see Fig. 3). The samples from Anatolia and the Balkans fall into two contiguous clusters. The positions of the populations within these clusters correspond well with their assignments to specific regional groups. The populations from Central Asia exhibit the most considerable interpopulation variability, showing significant distances to Anatolian and Balkan groups (P < 0.05). Both Gagauz samples clearly cluster with the Balkan samples, thus showing a general similarity with geographically close populations."

"Fast mutating markers may be more suitable to study genetic differentiation between populations that are rather closely related genetically. We therefore also used STR haplotype frequencies and molecular differences between haplotypes for phylogenetic reconstructions within Balkans and Anatolia. Phylogenetic analysis was performed by pooling the data of the present study with those of Zaharova et al., (2001), Robino et al., (2002), Barbarii et al., (2003), Cinnioğlu et al., (2004), Robino et al., (2004), Bosch et al., (2006), Lauc et al., (2005), Pericic et al., (2005a), Spiroski et al., (2005) (Supporting Information Table 2). Eighteen of twenty-four compared samples were same as in the previous analysis based on the binary polymorphisms. This enables us to compare the results of the two analyses. Results of MDS based on RST genetic distances (Supporting Information Table 4) are shown in Figure 4. As in the case of the binary markers, the compared populations are grouping according to major geographic regions. Both Gagauz samples have close affinity to the Balkan ethnic groups; however, they exhibit substantial dissimilarities if compared with each other (P 5 0.04). In terms of genetic distances, the Gagauzes from Etulia show the highest affinity to the northern Greeks, Serbs and Romanians from Constanta and Ploiesti, and the lowest to the Turkish groups, whereas the Gagauzes from Kongaz show close affinity with the majority of the Balkan populations, including the Bulgarian Turks, as well as with the three Turkish groups from Anatolia. Remarkably, the affinity of the Gagauzes from Kongaz to the Turks is not higher than affinity of the latter to some non-Turkic ethnic groups from the Balkans."

"The pairwise FST and RST comparisons show that Gagauzes are similar to surrounding populations and distant to the Turkic ones. However, FST and RST analyses are known to be influenced by multiple-testing problems. To avoid these problems, AMOVA analyses were performed (Table 3). Within Anatolia the genetic variance attributable to differences among populations was not significantly different from zero for both data sets (P > 0.05), suggesting that Anatolian populations are highly homogeneous. In the Balkan region a high genetic homogeneity was revealed only for Y-haplogroups (P > 0.05), whereas for Y-STR haplotypes a significant heterogeneity was found (P < 0.001). Likewise, the analysis showed no significant differences in haplogroup and significant differences in haplotype compositions between the Gagauz populations. The highest level of population differentiation was observed in Central Asia, with 7.7% of the total Y-haplogroup variation being attributable to differences among populations. Previous genetic analyses based on Y-chromosome and mtDNA data also revealed substantial genetic diversity among Central Asian populations. Such findings seem to be strongly determined by the historical past of Central Asia, which in turn is largely influenced by its geographical location at the crossroads between major Eurasian subdivisions. The AMOVA for the Y chromosome showed significant differences in haplogroup and Y-STR haplotype composition (P < 0.001) between major geographic regions. No significant differences were found between Gagauz and non-Gagauz populations in the Balkans when considering both sets of markers (P > 0.05). In contrast, we observed striking genetic differences between Gagauz and Turkic-speaking groups from Central Asia and Anatolia (P < 0.05). Thus, this set of analyses, in agreement with phylogenetic analyses, shows that the Gagauz Y-pools belong to the Balkan pools of Y-chromosomes."

"The R-M17 chromosomes could penetrate into the gene pool of the Gagauzes from Central Asia, where in some Turkic populations they are present in a very high frequency (Karafet et al., 2002; Kharkov et al., 2007; Wells et al., 2001; Zerjal et al., 2002). To explore the genetic similarities of the R-M17 Gagauz chromosomes with those from Central Asia and the Balkans, a median network based on Y-chromosome STR haplotypes on the background of M17 was generated (see Fig. 5). In the median network, the Balkan and Asian haplotypes tend to cluster according to geography and most of the Gagauz haplotypes cluster with the Balkan haplotypes. In particular, we could not find any Y-haplotypes typical for Central Asia (that are absent on the Balkans) in the Gagauz gene pool. Pairwise RST comparisons for Y-STR haplotypes within haplogroup R-M17 further indicate that the Gagauz R-M17 chromosomes are closely related to the Balkan R-M17 chromosomes (0.0207; P > 0.05) than to those from Central Asia (0.3522; P < 0.001)."

"Of the five predominant Y-haplogroups present in the Gagauzes, haplogroups R-M269 and G-M201 are widespread in Anatolia (Cinnioğlu et al., 2004). A detailed microsatellite analysis of these haplogroups in Gagauz, Anatolian, and Balkan populations is presented in Figure 6. For haplogroup G-M201 two Gagauz haplotypes (ht9 and ht13) were found to be shared with Turkish haplotypes, but no haplotype sharing was found between the Gagauzes and the Balkans, implying that at least the two shared with the Turks’ G-M201 lineages penetrated into the Gagauzes from Anatolia. In the R-M269 network of haplotypes, of four haplotypes shared by the Gagauzes with other populations one Gagauz Y-STR haplotype (ht51) groups with an Anatolian haplotype, one (ht49) clusters with a Balkan haplotype, and the remaining two haplotypes (ht50 and ht54) could be of either Balkan or Anatolian origin. Besides the three haplotypes mentioned, one belonging to R-M269 (ht51) and two to G-M201 (ht9 and ht13), we did not succeed in finding other haplotypes specific to Anatolian Turks in the Gagauzes."

"A distinguishing feature of the population of Central Asia is its high genetic heterogeneity (Karafet et al., 2002; Zerjal et al., 2002). Haplogroups Q-M242, C-M130, O-M175 and R-M17, however, are present in every population in Central Asia. The first three of the haplogroups are specific to the Asian region, but very scarce in Europe. The Gagauzes differ greatly from Central Asian populations with respect to Y-haplogroup frequencies. Indeed, none of 89 Gagauz male chromosomes investigated belongs to the Asian cluster, i.e., to the haplogroups Q-M242, C-M130, and O-M175. Although the haplogroup R-M17 is widely present in the gene pool of Gagauzes, we could not find among the Gagauz R-M17 chromosomes those specific to Central Asian populations. On the contrary, the Gagauz R-M17 chromosomes demonstrate a much higher affinity and identity with R-M17 chromosomes from the Balkans than with the ones from Central Asia, suggesting the plausible European origin of the R-M17 chromosomes in the Gagauz paternal gene pool. Some significant differences between Y-haplogroup frequencies in Gagauzes and in Central Asian populations are mirrored in significant genetic distances between them. Thus, our Y data seems to reject the hypothesis that the Gagauzes are biological descendants of the Turkic nomadic tribes from the Eurasian steppe."

"The haplogroup frequencies in the Gagauzes were also significantly different from those in Anatolian/Turkish populations, though to a lower degree than in Central Asian populations. The Anatolian populations have a high frequency of the Middle Eastern haplogroup J-12f2, whereas European haplogroups I-M170 and R-M17 are present here in much lower frequencies. The Gagauzes, on the contrary, have a low frequency of haplogroup J-12f2 and high or moderately high frequencies of I-M170 and R-M17. The frequencies of these haplogroups in the Gagauzes are very close to those in the Balkans. The Gagauzes also represent the Balkans with respect to the E-M78 to E-M123 ratios; haplogroup E-M78 occurs here much more often than E-M123 (Cruciani et al., 2004; Semino et al., 2004), whereas in Anatolia E-M78 and E-M123 occur at approximately equal frequencies (Cinnioğlu et al., 2004). Visual inspection revealed that the only Y-chromosome lineage that had frequencies in the Gagauzes closer to those in Turks than in the Balkans was G-M201. These frequencies were 0.171, 0.104 (our data) and 0.041 (Nasidze et al., 2007) in the Gagauz populations, 0–0.129 (average 0.055) in the rest of the Balkans and 0.039–0.200 (average 0.112) in Anatolia. This situation could indicate paternal gene flow mediated by the Turks, as suggested by the Seljuk hypothesis. Or, alternatively, genetic drift could be responsible for the increased G-M201 frequencies in two Gagauz samples. Analyses of diversity and median networks have demonstrated the plausibility of both assumptions. Indeed, the Gagauzes from Etulia with the highest G-M201 frequency are characterized by a relatively low level of STR haplotype diversity within G-M201 (D 5 0.810), indicating some effect of genetic drift. At the same time, some sharing between the Kongaz and Turkish G-M201 haplotypes in the absence of any sharing between the Gagauz and Balkan G-M201 haplotypes suggests a direct contribution of the Turks to the Gagauz paternal gene pool and, hence, lends some support to the theory of the Seljuk origin of the Gagauzes."

"Although some sharing between Gagauz and Turkish Y-haplotypes implies direct gene flow from Anatolia to the Gagauzes, its impact on the structure of the extant Gagauz gene pool was rather small. This conclusion is supported by three lines of evidence: (1) the Gagauzes represent the Balkans with respect to the Y-haplogroup frequencies; (2) genetic distance analyses based on stable and fast polymorphisms indicate a closer relationship of the Gagauzes to Balkan populations than to any Turkic group, and (3) in the MDS plots the Gagauz samples were not intermediate between the Balkan and Turkic samples, but occupied positions among the Balkan ones. These results are in agreement with previous investigations based on ‘‘classical’’ and DNA markers (Nasidze et al., 2007; Varsahr et al., 2001, 2003; Varzari et al., 2007). Altogether the genetic data indicate that the Gagauz language represents a case of language replacement in southeastern Europe. How has this replacement happened?"

"In our previous investigation of autosomal DNA markers in the Dniester-Carpathian region (Varzari et al., 2007), we suggested that in the case of the Gagauzes replacement could have occurred via the ‘‘elite dominance’’ model, which means that the original Turkic immigrant groups could be very small such that their genetic effect on the resident groups was negligible (Renfrew, 1987). This hypothesis is supported by numerous historical sources (Guboglo, 1967; Shabashov, 2002). Throughout the Middle Ages the Balkan peninsula was constantly subjected to Turkic invasions and conquests both from the southern Russian steppe and Anatolia. These tribes formed military (for example, that of the Avars, the Pechenegs, and the Cumans) and political (for example, that of the Bulgars and the Seljuks) unions, which also included the local Slavic and Romance populations besides the Turkic newcomers."

"In conclusion, our Y-chromosome analysis indicates a strong similarity between Gagauzes and Balkan populations. This finding could support the suggestion previously advanced on the basis of autosomal DNA markers, and the historical information that the Turkic language was imposed on the Balkans according to the elite-dominance model. According to this hypothesis, the Turkic newcomers were small in number such that their genes have been diluted by those of the autochthonous inhabitants. Interestingly, using microsatellite markers, we also discovered some traces of recent Anatolian lineages in the Gagauz paternal gene pool. This discovery matches the hypothesis of a Seljuk (Anatolian) origin of the Gagauz language, which, however, does not rule out a penetration of some Turkic linguistic elements from Eurasian steppes. Furthermore, we demonstrated that at the Balkan scale the Gagauzes are not a genetically homogeneous group. The observed genetic heterogeneity correlates well with the cultural and linguistic diversity among the Gagauzes and was presumably determined by the culturally and/or genetically heterogeneous environment on the Balkans. Genetic drift caused by cultural isolation and migration of Gagauzes from the Balkans to Bessarabia could also have facilitated the genetic differentiation among the Gagauz populations."

The table from the paper showing the haplogroup counts, frequencies and Y-chromosome diversities of the studied Gagauz populations:

2017-10-24 06_43_48-Searching for the origin of Gagauzes_ Inferences from Y-chromosome analysis.png

The Y-chromosome-based multidimensional scaling (MDS) analyses from the paper:

2017-10-24 06_35_04-Searching for the origin of Gagauzes_ Inferences from Y-chromosome analysis.png

2017-10-24 06_36_21-Searching for the origin of Gagauzes_ Inferences from Y-chromosome analysis.png

Autosomal studies also give support to the elite dominance model with a very small elite population for the formation of the Gagauz people since they show that the Gagauz people are autosomally virtually indistinguishable from their non-Turkic-speaking neighbors, i.e., Bulgarians and Romanians:

Turkic 1.png (from the Yunusbayev et al. 2015 paper; arrows and notes added by me for clarification)

[Afshar]

"A distinguishing feature of the population of Central Asia is its high genetic heterogeneity (Karafet et al., 2002; Zerjal et al., 2002). Haplogroups Q-M242, C-M130, O-M175 and R-M17, however, are present in every population in Central Asia. The first three of the haplogroups are specific to the Asian region, but very scarce in Europe. The Gagauzes differ greatly from Central Asian populations with respect to Y-haplogroup frequencies. Indeed, none of 89 Gagauz male chromosomes investigated belongs to the Asian cluster, i.e., to the haplogroups Q-M242, C-M130, and O-M175. Although the haplogroup R-M17 is widely present in the gene pool of Gagauzes, we could not find among the Gagauz R-M17 chromosomes those specific to Central Asian populations. On the contrary, the Gagauz R-M17 chromosomes demonstrate a much higher affinity and identity with R-M17 chromosomes from the Balkans than with the ones from Central Asia, suggesting the plausible European origin of the R-M17 chromosomes in the Gagauz paternal gene pool. Some significant differences between Y-haplogroup frequencies in Gagauzes and in Central Asian populations are mirrored in significant genetic distances between them. Thus, our Y data seems to reject the hypothesis that the Gagauzes are biological descendants of the Turkic nomadic tribes from the Eurasian steppe."

So if I understand correctly, the author concludes this because they don't have these 3 haplogroups?
But I see the paper is from way back so its okay

[Onur Dincer]

So if I understand correctly, the author concludes this because they don't have these 3 haplogroups?
But I see the paper is from way back so its okay

No, they did much more than that. You should read the whole paper. They not only compared the Y-DNA haplogroups of Gagauzes with those of other Balkan peoples, Turks from Turkey and Central Asians, but they also compared the Y-STR markers of Gagauzes with those of theirs and also did AMOVA analyses on them. The paper may be from 2009, but they did all they could do on Y-chromosomes for that year and their findings are still valid due to the utmost care they gave to their analyses. In addition to that, their findings are backed by the autosomal results as I showed above.

In light of these findings, we should also consider the scenario that the ancestors of the Gagauz people acquired their Turkic language from tneir Muslim Balkan Turkish neighbors via cultural interaction with them during the Ottoman times. Dobrudja (where Gagauzes come from) was a Muslim-majority region during much of the Ottoman times and Muslims in Dobrudja were Balkan Turkish-speaking, so Christians living there might have switched to Turkish via cultural interaction with their Muslim neighbors and over time might have formed the community which is now called the Gagauz people (like the case of the switch to Turkish by many Christians in Anatolia). This scenario is also plausible because the Gagauz language is essentially no different from the Dobrudja dialect of Balkan Turkish except some vocabulary coming from their Christian religion.

[Thracian88]

I don't know somehow Gagauz's are my number one in MDLP-World and MDLP-22. Second in MDLP-16 and very close to my number one in K15 World. Also according to DNA tribe Gagauz's rank is my number 1.

[lukaszM]

I don't know somehow Gagauz's are my number one in MDLP-World and MDLP-22. Second in MDLP-16 and very close to my number one in K15 World. Also according to DNA tribe Gagauz's rank is my number 1.

Because they use Gagauz dataset from Yunusbaev study. Those Gagauz are really strange considering fact they are Turkic. They don't have Siberian/ East-Asian admixture at all (and remember Turks in Turkey have, and Gagauz are steppe Turko-Tatars right?). Basically they are like Bulgarians or south Romanians.

[Onur Dincer]

Because they use Gagauz dataset from Yunusbaev study. Those Gagauz are really strange considering fact they are Turkic. They don't have Siberian/ East-Asian admixture at all (and remember Turks in Turkey have, and Gagauz are steppe Turko-Tatars right?). Basically they are like Bulgarians or south Romanians.

Lukasz, have you ever seen a Gagauz genetic result with a clear indication of Turkic genetic ancestry?

[vettor]

Lukasz, have you ever seen a Gagauz genetic result with a clear indication of Turkic genetic ancestry?

Their bardic story are 2
1- they originate from bulgars living on the bulgarian black sea coast and fled north on the ottoman invasions

2- they are "bulgars" from Altaic turkic lands who went to the balkans with the bulgars

[JerryS.]

as a neophyte I have to ask, in its most over simplified form does Greek and Gagauz equal Bulgarian?

[selectivememri]

in a few calculators i scored closer to gagauz than my own actual ethnicity, and was always curious what the connection was. thanks for posting this info, it makes more sense now!