Mishar Tatars 23andme format Human origins dataset

The Mishar Tatars are a subgroup of the Volga Tatars with a distinct origin rooted in a complex history of ethnogenesis involving Turkic, Finno-Ugric, and Bulgar elements. Their ancestry is considered to be a blend of Moksha and Turkic-speaking populations, particularly those descending from Volga Bulgaria, a powerful medieval state that flourished between the 7th and 13th centuries along the Volga and Kama rivers.

Volga Bulgaria was a significant cultural and commercial center, and many of its inhabitants converted to Islam in the 10th century. Following the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, the region was incorporated into the Golden Horde, and the remnants of Volga Bulgars gradually merged with incoming Kipchak Turks and other nomadic groups. This fusion contributed to the development of the Tatar identity, including that of the Mishars.

The Mishar Tatars specifically emerged in the western regions of Tatarstan, Mordovia, and parts of Penza and Nizhny Novgorod oblasts. Their language includes grammatical features and loanwords from Moksha, which reflects the deep Finno-Ugric roots in their ethnogenesis. Some historians propose that the Mishars were partially formed through the Turkification of local Moksha populations under the influence of Volga Bulgaria and later the Kazan Khanate.

During the time of the Kazan Khanate, the Mishar Tatars played a role as frontier dwellers and military settlers. Leaders like Khan Olugh Muhammad and Khan Sahib Giray presided over the Kazan Khanate and indirectly influenced the cultural and political formation of the Mishars. Following the Russian conquest of Kazan in 1552, many Mishars were integrated into the Tsardom of Russia but retained a distinct identity.

Regarding the recent genetics of Mishar tatars, here I made a qpAdm model attempting to estimate how much Balto-Finnic, Turkic, and Iranic admixture the Mishars have. According to this model, around half of their ancestry is balto-finnic, while the other half is split between Sarmatian and turkic.

In terms of deeper ancestry, going back to the Bronze age, around 3 fourths of Mishar ancestry is corded ware, around 10 percent is indigenous central asian, otherwise known as BMAC, and 14 percent of their ancestry goes back to Amur hunter gatherers. The Amur hunter gatherer component comes from their turkic ancestry, while the BMAC (Bustan) ancestry comes from the Iranic side.

I also made a mesolithic model for the Mishars. The largest component in their ancestry is Anatolian neolithic farmer, similar to other europeans. However, unlike Europeans, their Caucasus and Iranian Neolithic contribution is very elevated. On this model, they also score 14 and a half percent Amur hunter gatherer ancestry.

I computed Fst between the Mishars and 49 ethnic groups featured on the aadr v 62 dataset. It turns out the Mishars are actually quite close to Russians, with Russians showing up as their second closest ethnicity. The mordvins, which actually participated in the ethnogenesis of the mishar tatars, come at third place. The Chuvash seem quite distant and Bulgarians even more so. Interestingly, Bulgarians and Mishar Tatars share some common ancestry, as Great Bulgarians contributed both to Volga Bulgaria and Balkan Bulgaria. The Udmurts ended up very distant from the Mishars, even more distant than Iranians, probably due to elevated East Asian admixture in Udmurts.

For this video, I collected the genomes of 10 Mishar Tatars from the human origins dataset. I ran them through my Trait Predictor tool for DNA analysis, which you can purchase from the link in description.