Historic Greek Populations In Anatolia

Vast majority of the Anatolian gene-pool is local. Genetically speaking, Turks have (mostly) descended from the ancient peoples of the Anatolian peninsula, and any other ethnicity from Celts to Mongols, who passed through that land and contributed to the local gene-pool. Turks, or more correctly, Turcomans, have arrived in Anatolia in large numbers from Central Asia, too, but nevertheless, since most of them were nomads, they were not numerous enough to outnumber the sedentary peoples of that land.

I found a few scientific papers on the internet about the influence of Central Asian genetics on the gene-pool of Anatolia. The papers are serious scientific efforts from respectable sources, most of them involving Turkish researchers.

- http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/98/18/10244

The Turkish and Azeri populations are atypical among Altaic speakers (Table 1) in having low frequencies of M130, M48, M45, and M17 haplotypes. Rather, these two Turkic-speaking groups seem to be closer to populations from the Middle East and Caucasus, characterized by high frequencies of M96- and/or M89-related haplotypes. This finding is consistent with a model in which the Turkic languages, originating in the Altai-Sayan region of Central Asia and northwestern Mongolia (31), were imposed on the Caucasian and Anatolian peoples with relatively little genetic admixture (another possible example of elite dominance-driven linguistic replacement.)

Meaning: Turks and Azeris are closer to the populations from the Middle East and Caucasus rather than to those of Central Asia.

- http://evolutsioon.ut.ee/publications/Malaspina2003.pdf

Populations speaking very different languages, i.e. Indo-European (the Talysh) and Altaic (the Turkish and the Azeri), show little differences in the incidence of this network. One can hypothesize that the presence of this network in this area is the result of migrations of Altaic-speakers into Turkey in the eleventh century AD and subsequent admixture into the Talysh. This hypothesis is, however, ruled out by the high (20-30 per cent) frequency of this network in Continental Greece and Crete. This would imply a massive contribution of recent Turkish genes to the gene pools of these populations, an unlikely occurrence. Thus it is reasonable to conclude that network 1.2 chromosomes were peculiar to Indo-European-speaking populations which settled in and in the surroundings of the Turkish peninsula prior to the arrival of Altaic-speakers.

Meaning: Turkish and Azeri genetics are similar to the genetics of neighbouring ethnicities, and the similarities are due to the local genes in Turks.

- http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/HG_2004_v114_p127-148. pdf

Minor genetic influence of Turkic speakers

Various estimates exist of the proportion of gene flow associated with the arrival of Central Asian Turkic speaking people to Anatolia. One study based on analyses of six STR loci in 88 Y-chromosomes from Turkey suggested only a 10% contribution (Rolf et al. 1999). Another study suggests roughly 30% based upon mtDNA control region sequences and one binary and six STR Y-chromosome loci analyzed in 118 Turkish samples (Di Benedetto et al. 2001). While it is likely that gene flow between Central Asia and Anatolia has occurred repeatedly throughout prehistory, uncertainties regarding source populations and the number of such episodes between Central Asia and Europe confound any assessment of the contribution of the 11th century AD Oghuz nomads responsible for the Turkic language replacement. These new Y-chromosome data provide candidate haplogroups to differentiate lineages specific to the postulated source populations, thus overcoming potential artifacts caused by indistinguishable overlapping gene flows. The best candidates for estimations are Asian-specific haplogroups C-RPS4Y (Wells et al. 2001; Karafet et al. 2001; Zerjal et al. 2003) and O3-M122 (Su et al. 2000). These lineages occur at 1.5% in Turkey (8/523). Using Central Asian Y-chromosome data from either 13 populations and 149 samples (Underhill et al. 2000) or 49 populations and 1,935 samples (Wells et al. 2001) where these diagnostic lineages occur at 33% and 18%, respectively, their estimated contributions range from 0.0153/0.329�100=4.6% to 0.0153/0.180�100=8.5%.

During the Bronze Age the population of Anatolia expanded, reaching an estimated level of 12 million during the late Roman Period (Russell 1958). Such a large pre-existing Anatolian population would have reduced the impact by the subsequent arrival of Turkic speaking Seljuk and Osmanl� groups from Central Asia. Although the genetic legacy of Anatolia remains somewhat inchoate, our excavations of these new levels of shared Y-chromosome heritage and subsequent diversification provide new clues to Anatolian prehistory, as well as a substantial foundation for comparisons with other populations. Our results demonstrate Anatolia�s role as a buffer between culturally and genetically distinct populations, being both an important source and recipient of gene flow.

Meaning: We cannot tell for sure, but the genetic impact of the Oghuz isn�t that much.

- http://web.unife.it/progetti/genetica/Giorgio/PDFfiles/ajpa2 001.pdf

The genetic features of populations before admixture are unknown, and must be approximated using information on contemporary samples (see Guglielmino et al., 1990). If the European populations of the eastern Mediterranean region are not too different genetically from the 11th century Anatolian population, and if the Turkmen incomers were not too different from the modern Turkic speaking groups of Central Asia, this study shows that: 1) the Anatolian gene pool contains a substantial fraction of alleles of Asian origin; 2) immigration rates inferred from female- and male-transmitted traits are similar; 3) if there was a single, nearly instantaneous admixture event, some 30% of the current Anatolian genes have a Central Asian origin; and 4) if there was a continuous input of Central Asian alleles, it occurred at a rate of 1% per generation (or less, had the process started before the first Turkmen contact).

Meaning: If we compare the genetics of the modern Anatolian population to those of the modern Central Asians, up to 30% match. Note that this research is the one which found the highest percentage. It still says that 70% of the genes are not from Central Asia. Other research usually finds a lower percentage, 10% (Rolf et al, mentioned above) and even less.

Conclusion:

Anatolians are genetically much closer to the peoples in neighbouring areas (i.e. Balkans, Middle East, Caucasus) than to the Central Asians.

My note to the Turkish nationalists infesting this forum:

You are not cousins of the Turkmens, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, you are cousins of Greeks, Armenians and Kurds,so be nice to your cousins the next time.