A number of articles by Professor Anatoly Klyosov on DNA genealogy caused a wide response from our audience. A real flurry of responses and questions came from the readers. We contacted the professor and he gave us an exclusive interview clarifying the details of his research.
- What achievement of DNA genealogy in the field of studying the history of the Russian people do you consider the most important today?
- Many spears are broken around who the Rus are and where they came from. Quite a few interpretations have been invented, in which the absence of facts is "compensated" by exuberant imagination.
DNA genealogy has received a precise answer to this question. “Accurate” here is the one that is most consistent with objective scientific evidence. So, let me remind you that the Corded Ware Culture and the Fatyanovo culture are of key importance for the history of the Russian Plain. The first originated about 5200 years ago and ended 4500 years ago. It was she who passed into the Fatyanovo culture, which stretched from Belarus to the territory of present-day Tatarstan and Chuvashia.
So, the Fatyanovites were never called Rus only because, according to the concepts of many historians, the Slavs cannot be ancient. Allegedly, the Slavs and Russians have practically no roots. In other words, it is assumed by default that the Slavs in general, and the Russians in particular, do not have ancient ancestors and did not exist.
Some information can still be found in the literature about the ants and sklavens, but there is nothing about who the Fatyanovites were. Like, it is not clear who they are. However, DNA analysis showed that the Fatyanovites belong to the R1a haplogroup, and half of the modern ethnic Russians are also R1a.
Moreover, the location of the burials of the Fatyanovites was also typical for people belonging to the haplogroup R1a. In other words, the Fatyanovites are the direct ancestors of half of the modern ethnic Russians who have the same haplogroup R1a (the remaining half have haplogroups I2a, N1c1, and minor haplogroups, or genus).
Now the question is: why are the people of the Fatyanovo culture not called ancient Rus? Yes, only because the important heads of historical institutions did not give their approval to the term. Names are entered by people in authority, and that is the answer to the question. And they, firstly, do not know that the Fatyanovites are the direct ancestors of half of modern Russians, and secondly, they don’t want to change anything, because the liberals will immediately call them “nationalists”, which is worse than war for academic historians - goodbye, foreign grants, who has.
Nevertheless, DNA tests unambiguously show a direct connection between ethnic Russians and Fatyanovites, and this, I believe, is one of the most recent major advances in DNA genealogy.
- There is a lot of speculation on the alleged Finno-Ugric origin of the Russian people. What does DNA genealogy say about this?
- Of course, I have come across such arguments more than once and consider them as part of the information war. From the same category as the notorious Normanism. Normanism and Finno-Ugricism are twin brothers. Moreover, the tone was taken as if the Finno-Ugric peoples were something bad.
This is especially true of recent Ukrainian falsifiers of history and their illiterate allies "from the crowd." The best they thought of was that the Russians are a mixture of Finno-Ugric and Mongolian. Firstly, this is racism, which I do not accept, all peoples, of course, are equal, there are no peoples higher or lower than others.
Secondly, DNA tests have determined that haplogroup N1c1, which is incorrectly called "Finno-Ugric", in modern ethnic Russians on average 14%, but this is on average. If we move from Pskov and further north, this number increases, and in the White Sea area it reaches about 40%.
If we move to the south of Russia, then in the Kursk, Belgorod, Orel regions their number decreases to 5%, and becomes less than, say, in Ukraine. And the reason is clear - a simple geographic factor. The further south you are from the Baltic, the lower the content of the haplogroup N1c1. In the Balkans, for example, there is none at all. And among Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, the content of haplogroups R1a and N1c1 is equal - 40% each, the rest is minor impurities, as a rule, “visitors” for the last couple of millennia.
Thirdly, Lithuanians and Latvians, as well as carriers of haplogroup N1c1 among ethnic Russians, what kind of “Finno-Ugrians” are they? According to the well-known scientific definition, "Finno-Ugric" is the speakers of the Finno-Ugric languages. And in Lithuania, Latvia, in Pskov and Kursk, the Finno-Ugric languages are not spoken. Therefore, the question is not that being Finno-Ugric is something shameful or reprehensible, but that it is wrong.
Fourthly, haplogroup N1c1 appeared in the Baltic States and on the territory of the Russian Plain about 2500 years ago, in the middle of the 1st millennium BC, and it first appeared in the southern Baltic, and its speakers, apparently, already spoke the languages of the Indo-European family, as well as carriers of the haplogroup R1a, and then on the territory of modern Finland, about 1500-2000 years ago.
By that time, the Fatyanovo culture had long existed on the territory of the Russian Plain. People belonging to the haplogroup R1a lived there. The most interesting thing is that when I look for the roots of the myth about the Finno-Ugric origin of Russians, I see that initially this thesis was formulated only as a hypothesis. It was just a guess, you know? There were no grounds for that hypothesis, they were invented by interpreting indirect data. Or they just came up with it when there was no data.
When a hypothesis is passed off as an indisputable fact, then we are faced with an ideologized approach. And his goal is transparent: to inculcate among the Russians the conviction that they live in a foreign land. The Slavs are supposedly aliens here, and the territory does not rightfully belong to them.
In a similar way, in my opinion, the Norman theory is being constructed. They say that the Russian state was founded by aliens, some "Scandinavians" who laid down everything - and crafts, and diplomacy, and military affairs. And there were them in Russia, apparently invisible, some Normans say that tens of thousands, others that hundreds of thousands.
One misfortune - their descendants disappeared somewhere on the Russian Plain. Even if there were only 100-200 people 1000-1200 years ago, now there would be many of their descendants. And they are not. After a long search for the descendants of the "Scandinavians" in Russia, they hardly found four people who have no idea that there is a "Scandinavian" label in their DNA. They know their ancestors only before their grandfather. Not one was found in Ukraine, not one in Belarus, not one in Lithuania.
In DNA genealogy, the "Scandinavian" tag is called Z284. It, of course, is full in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and you know where else? In the British Isles - in England, Ireland, Scotland, where, according to historical information, the Vikings went. And they, it turns out, went only to the west, they did not go to the east.
There were no "Normans" in Russia, except as inmates in the fortress Oreshek, and with the troops of Charles XII with a known success. They did not have time to acquire descendants here. It turns out that the Slavs brought "Scandinavian" swords from military campaigns, as trophies, or even made them themselves. The same is true for the buildings of "Scandinavian construction". Look in the Ladoga region for "Scandinavian chromosomes", you will not find. There are none, and never were. This is how the "Norman theory" falls apart like a house of cards.
- It is often said that the very name of the capital of Russia is of Finno-Ugric origin, and this is considered one of the proofs of the Finno-Ugric origin of the entire Russian people.
- Yes, they really say that the word "Moscow" is supposedly translated from the Finno-Ugric. Others, however, argue that it is from Turkic. Still others - that it is from the Arabic word "mosk", which means "mosque" (from the Arabic مسجد [ˈmæsdʒɪd] - "place of worship").
But in fact, there are at least two dozen versions of the origin of this word, up to the fact that in Latin there is the word "Mosqa" (male union, brotherhood, monastery). However, all versions are “forgotten”, only one possible interpretation is put forward, and even this is presented not as an assumption, but as an allegedly “proven” fact. This is the lack of a scientific approach - to pedal only one version, which is thrown in, and the others seem to be gone.
In general, I see how they go out of their way, trying to “prove” that it was not Russians who originally lived on the Russian Plain. They talk about the Swedes, about the Finno-Ugrians, about the ancient Germans - just not the Russians. Fortunately, there is now a mathematically accurate tool (DNA genealogy) that puts an unequivocal end to all this fiction.
The good thing about DNA genealogy is that it is an exact science that does not allow many ideologized reinterpretations. We do not deal with the consonance of some old names, we do not take two broken pots and, according to the subjective similarity of their appearance, do not draw far-reaching conclusions, and do not take on faith who and for what reason said in ancient times, Herodotus or Homer.
We only accept facts, direct evidence. We are for honest science, not for one based on "opinions", and opinions turn in any desired direction, depending on an external or internal order.
- Consider another well-known culture that stretched from the southern Urals to the Dniester. This is the Yamnaya culture, dating from 4600-5300 years ago
- The thesis is expressed in the academic literature that the representatives of the Yamnaya culture created the Afanasyevsk culture of Altai. This conclusion was made on the basis of just the external similarity of the material characteristics of the two cultures.
At the same time, a natural question arises: what is the basis for the conclusion that the Afanasyevites brought culture to the south of Siberia, and not vice versa? And they, they say, have a lot in common, between Yamnaya and Afanasyevskaya. Great, but why is the similarity interpreted only in one direction? And because it has long been expressed, and "bronzed". Now, this is not science either.
DNA genealogy is able to clearly show not only the connection between cultures, but also the direction of migration of peoples. Now, with the help of DNA tests, it has been proven that people from southern Siberia, including the ancestors of the pit, moved west. The roots of the Yamnaya culture were found in the Afanasyevsk culture, and not vice versa. And from the Yamnaya culture, those ancient people (haplogroups R1b) went south, through the Caucasus to Mesopotamia, and not west, supposedly to Europe, as historians and archaeologists have believed for half a century.
There is no DNA of the "pitmen" in Europe, but there are many of them in their descendants - in the Caucasus and Turkey, and further, bypassing the Mediterranean Sea - on the Iberian Peninsula. And from there - the rapid settlement of continental Europe 4800-4400 years ago, and then more slowly and more thoroughly - up to 3000 years ago, before the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.
For historians, this turned out to be a solution to an old riddle - where did the bell-shaped goblet culture come from? And she went to continental Europe from the Iberian Peninsula, starting from 4800 years ago. There, along the way, many more riddles were solved, including the one in which the invaders of Europe spoke, why and how “Old Europe” died, who the Celts were and where they came from, and much more.
- Your opponents constantly emphasize that you are not a geneticist, but a chemist, which means that you are not a professional in the field you have taken on. Even the most ardent opponents do not question your world-class achievements in chemistry. But this is not genetics, is it?
- There is an elementary substitution of the thesis. DNA genealogy and genetics are different things, different scientific disciplines. I never said that I was a geneticist, I never claimed that I was doing genetic research. I’m not a neurosurgeon, nor a sword swallower, but what does DNA genealogy have to do with it? This is also the case with genetics.
DNA genealogy stands on the shoulders of geneticists, more precisely, on one shoulder. The other shoulder is physical chemistry. The third shoulder, if there were such a thing, is the historical sciences. And I am an expert in physical chemistry, which geneticists do not understand. Therefore, geneticists could not create a DNA genealogy. And I could not create genetics, which I do not claim.
In jest, DNA genealogy is the use of chemical methods to process data obtained by geneticists. Do you see the difference or not?
Simply put, what is DNA? This is deoxyribonucleic acid. Acid, do you understand? Well, let someone now say that chemists do not deal with acids and that this is not their sphere of professional activity. Chickens laugh!
Seriously though, the most important part of DNA genealogy is the transformation of a picture of mutations, unfolded in time, into chronological indicators. In other words, in times that have passed since certain historical events and phenomena, such as, for example, ancient migrations, the formation of ancient archaeological cultures, the transition of migrants to other regions and to other continents, issues of human evolution - there, too, evolution took place in time.
Here, the rates of mutations in the Y-chromosome, more precisely, in different parts of the chromosome, play a huge role, and for this it is necessary to know the equations of reaction rates, the methodology of specialized calculations.
This is not genetics, and has nothing to do with genetics. This is DNA genealogy. And genetics understand little in physical chemistry and in history. Not their methodology. Here is DNA genealogy and came out at the junctions of sciences. This is now called a “multidisciplinary approach”. This is about us.
-Thanks for the detailed answers. There are still many questions left, and we will definitely turn to you again, if you do not mind.
-Of course, please.
