Tracing the Genetic Legacy of the Tibetan Empire in the Balti
Yang XYPapers in this archive, Rakha APapers in this archive, Chen WPapers in this archive, Hou JPapers in this archive, Qi XBPapers in this archive, Shen QKPapers in this archive, Dai SSPapers in this archive, Sulaiman XPapers in this archive, Abdulloevich NTPapers in this archive, Afanasevna MEPapers in this archive, Ibrohimovich KBPapers in this archive, Chen XPapers in this archive, Yang WKPapers in this archive, Adnan APapers in this archive, Zhao RHPapers in this archive, Yao YGPapers in this archive, Su BPapers in this archive, Peng MSPapers in this archive, Zhang YPPapers in this archive
Abstract
The rise and expansion of Tibetan Empire in the 7th to 9th centuries AD affected the course of history across East Eurasia, but the genetic impact of Tibetans on surrounding populations remains undefined. We sequenced 60 genomes for four populations from Pakistan and Tajikistan to explore their demographic history. We showed that the genomes of Balti people from Baltistan comprised 22.6–26% Tibetan ancestry. We inferred a single admixture event and dated it to about 39–21 generations ago, a period that postdated the conquest of Baltistan by the ancient Tibetan Empire. The analyses of mitochondrial DNA, Y, and X chromosome data indicated that both ancient Tibetan males and females were involved in the male-biased dispersal. Given the fact that the Balti people adopted Tibetan language and culture in history, our study suggested the impact of Tibetan Empire on Baltistan involved dominant cultural and minor demic diffusion. Keywords: Balti, Tibetan, admixture, genome, mtDNA, X chromosome
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