Genetic History of Russian Old-Settlers of the Arctic Coast of Yakutia from the Settlement of Russkoe Ust’ye Inferred from Y Chromosome Data and Genome-Wide Analysis

There are different hypotheses on the origin and time of appearance of Russian settlements in the northeast of the Arctic. To study the history of the formation of northern old-settler population of Yakutia, Y-chromosome lineages were traced in representatives of the three groups of residents of the settlement of Russkoe Ust’ye, located in the delta of the Indigirka River (“Pomors,” “Cossacks” and “Zashivertsy”), comparable with the main migration waves of Russian arrival to the Arctic coast of Eastern Siberia. For the first time, the characteristic features of the genetic structure of Russkoustinian population are described based on the data of genome-wide analysis of 740 000 SNPs. The results of the study are more in favor of the “Pomor” hypothesis of the origin of Russkoustinians.