How is it that nearly 20% of all Asians are related to Ghengis Khan? I feel like they mean the mongols, but every article I read says Khan.
In: 1751
As far as I know it’s a pop culture myth loosely based on a paper. As pointed out by Jackmeister from r/Askhistorians who wrote an episode for K&G https://youtu.be/qrPnMEpOuNw
and this https://www.nature.com/articles/s41431-017-0012-3
the whole pop culture myth is bologne.
The og team found Mongolian populations had a particular gene in abundance (16 million by their estimate) and through somewhat shoddy unreliable methods concluded it arose in the 1000s ad thus to explain this rapid growth the claimed must be from the upper classes of Mongolian society. As the were previous examples of such happening in other societies as the upper classes don’t suffer from stuff like malnutrition, and have increased protection from stuff like random voilence etc so its like an evolutionary advantage almost especially in polygamous societes.
However as they had only random genetic samples from various populations with no way to distinguish between noble descendents with geneologies and random serfs and bannermen. They also made the really odd claim that the Hazara had an oral tradition of being the direct descendents of Chinggis Haan which they claimed proved it was common among the mongol elite. However no one else says the Hazara are such.
It should be noted they claimed he was himself a descendent and the gene spread more from higher per capita babies than any individual. However their dating is questionable as exhumed graves from as far back as the 500s BCE have the gene, the descendents of Chinggisid royalty and nobility with genealogies to prove it lack the gene entirely, and the gene is only found commonly in populations whose ancestors were poor commoners.
Thus it is the other way around the gene is an ancient mutation that spread slowly but steadily in the lower class populations of proto-Mongolic, mongolic peoples and those who mixed with them such as Turks, Central asian, etc populations. With much earlier steppe empires such as the Xioungnu, Gokturks, Avars etc spreading it long before Temujin was even born.
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