The Origins of the Scythians | DNA

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 09:59:53 +0000

In this episode I am joined by Geneticist Razib Khan and we dive into an episode that many of your requested and that is the origins of the Scythians.

The Scythians were a power of the ancient Steppes who made the image of the pants wearing barbarian on horseback in the popular imagination in the classical world.

From discussing what ancient sources such as Herodotus had to say to looking at traditional narratives in historiography as to the origins of the Scythians, we then turn to look at what ancient DNA has to say about the ancient Scythians and where they came from... who they came from?

Interestingly enough due to occupying the Eurasian Steppes we now know that there was some genetic diversity but they were all primarily homogenous.

With admixtures related to European farmers and the Yamnaya culture. But we also see an interesting discovery that a certain percentage of Scythian ancestry can be traced to East Asians.

Lastly, we leave off by discussing Russian scientists and their amusing attempts to clone ancient Scythian DNA.

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Website: https://razib.substack.com/

Razib Khan: https://www.razib.com/bio/wordpress/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/razibkhan