The genetic peculiarity of the Novgorod population in the context of ethnic groups from European Russia

We studied the gene pool of the Novgorod region of Russia by using the detailed genome-wide Illumina array. Three studied populations from the Novgorod region (15 individual genomes) have been compared with many other groups from European Russia and Ural (259 genomes from 21 ethnic Russian populations and 442 genomes from 20 other ethnic groups). We found the peculiarity of the Novgorod gene pool: when the entire gene pool of European Russia was subdivided into 8 ancestral components, one of these components comprised the vast majority (91%) of the Novgorod gene pool while in other ethnic Russian populations this component comprised only about one third of the gene pool and in most other ethnic groups this component was nearby absent. This “Novgorod” ancestral component was also typical for the populations from Yaroslavl region: the autosomal gene pools of Novgorod and Yaroslavl regions were almost identical. The same genetic peculiarities were also found in genomes of some individuals from the Nizhniy Novgorod, whose genealogical medieval ancestors migrated from the Novgorod. This finding conforms that this ancestral component might reflect the ancient Novgorod gene pool. Analysis of 677 genomes from other populations revealed the presence of this “Novgorod” component in three other populations: in almost all studied individuals from the Lensky district of Archangelsk region, in most Komi-Permyak individuals, and in half of Vod individuals. We hypothesized this genetic strata descended from the Ilmen Slovene tribe’s gene pool, which in turn contained the genetic legacy of local pre-Slavonic inhabitants, which seemed to have more eastern (Volga-Finnic and Permic-Finnic speaking) than western (Baltic-Finnic-speaking) affinities. In this study we publish three out of eight ancestral genetic components, which we called “Novgorod”, “Karelian”, and “Pomor” ones. These maps allow humanitarians to analyze the roles of these three sources of gene pool of European Russia without dealing with the specifically genetic details.

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