Are Eastern Europeans/Slavs Eurasians or have Asian genes in them?

[Sarmatian]

What do you mean by asking if they are "Eurasians"? What does that mean?? I've never seen such term used to describe ethnicity. Eurasia is a continent of which Europe and Asia are parts. So what is this "Eurasian" group of people and why wouldn't it include "Asians"? And how exactly do you define "Asians" for that matter?

I think he means Indo-european.
@ Mr Durlan: Of all slavs, only russians and ukranians had significant contact with mongols. So I presume, there were some mixing but mongol genes aren't predominant. Calling them "asians" or mongols is like calling germans slavs because they mixed with poles and czechs, for example...

[L'Impresario]

In Western terminology, a "Caucasian" is a white person, because it is believed that the origin of the Proto-Indo-European language finds itself in the Causasus mountain range.

Actually I think that only Americans use that term extensively. In Europe it mostly refers to Caucasus inhabitants.
BTW Eurasian is a term that actually exists heh

[Silver Rusher]

Well, it depends what you mean by 'Slav', because many of the peoples who are commonly referred to as Slavs are not ethnically Slavs, just people speaking Slavonic languages. Southern Slavs, for example, are mostly steppe tribes that settled in that area and learned slavonic languages from either people they lived near early on, invaders or the sparse Slavic population of the regions they settled.

Croats are thought to be descended from Alans, but this is only a theory. Otherwise, the origins of the Croat tribe are unknown.
Serbs were a Sarmatian tribe.
Bulgarians were a Turkic people (another branch of the Bulgar tribe was the Volga-Bulgarians, who as you may have known settled along the banks of the Volga and converted to Islam).

However, people like Czechs, Poles and Russians are all descended from the original Slav ethnicity. Even these people, though, are incredibly varied in terms of their gene pool. Part of the point I was making earlier is that even within nationalities that are considered descended from the proto-Slavonic people, a huge history of invaders, natives, settlers and migratory peoples means that Slavs share very few genetic traits.

EDIT: Eastern European is also a dodgy term. Hungarians and Romanians are not Slavs, nor do they typically have proto-Slav genes.

EDIT2: Also, a caucasian (or caucasoid) is one of the 5 distinct races, incorporating people from Europe, through the Middle East and North Africa and right down to India. For your information, others are:

Mongoloid: Inhabitants of Asia (excluding caucasian areas) and natives of the Americas
Negroid: Originate in central Africa but also live in large populations in the Americas, Europe etc.
Capoid: Disputed, but usually agreed to be a seperate race from Negroids, they mostly inhabit southern Africa.
Australoid: Commonly referred to as 'Aboriginals' and live mostly in Australia but inhabit parts of India also.

[Sarmatian]

Well, it depends what you mean by 'Slav', because many of the peoples who are commonly referred to as Slavs are not ethnically Slavs, just people speaking Slavonic languages. Southern Slavs, for example, are mostly steppe tribes that settled in that area and learned slavonic languages from either people they lived near early on, invaders or the sparse Slavic population of the regions they settled.

Croats are thought to be descended from Alans, but this is only a theory. Otherwise, the origins of the Croat tribe are unknown.
Serbs were a Sarmatian tribe.
Bulgarians were a Turkic people (another branch of the Bulgar tribe was the Volga-Bulgarians, who as you may have known settled along the banks of the Volga and converted to Islam).

Serbs were not a sarmatian tribe. The fact that there was a sarmatian tribe called "serbs" doesn't necesarilly mean that serbs were sarmatians. Toponyms which include the root of the name (srb) exist in a very large area, from middle east and asia to central europe. Sarmatian theory is just one of the many theories of the origin of the name "serbs". Wikipedia:
Earliest historical records of names similar to "Serb"
Here are a few of the earliest quotations from well known ancient geographers and historians:

Herodotus (11,6) (5th century BC), and Diodor from Sicily (1,30) mention the lake named Serbonis (Σερβυνιδοζ) in lower Egypt. However taking the large distances into the account it is highly unlikely that today's Serbs have anything to do with that particular toponym.

Strabo (63 - 19 BC): "the river Kanthos/Skamandros is called Sirbis (Sirbika) by the natives." ( Strabonis rerum geographicarum libri septendicini, Basileza 1571 s. 763).

Tacitus (ca. 50 AD): described the Serboi tribe near the Caucasus, close to the hinterland into the Black Sea. Many consider this theory as a very probable one taking some distant linguistic similarities with today's Caucausus people's such as Ingushi, Chechens etc.

Pliny (69-75 AD): "beside the Cimerians live Meotics, Valians, Serbs (Serboi), Zingians, Psesians." (Historia naturalis, VI, c. 7 & 19 Leipzig 1975). It coincides with the Tacitus's view on Serbian ancient homeland among the Iranian peoples of the Caucausus.

Ptolemy (150 AD): "between the Keraunian mountains and the river Pa, live the Orineians, Valians and Serbs." (Geographia V, s. 9). Ptolemy also mention the city in Pannonia named Serbinum (present day Bosanska Gradiška in Republika Srpska). This well known ancient scientist one more time points out to the Caucasus placing Serbs close to Black Sea riviera.
In the third century Roman emperor Licinius referred to the Carpathians as 'Montes Serrorum' ("Serb mountains").

There is a theory that the name Serbs was a designation for all Slavic peoples in history. The earliest possible association of Serbi with Slavs is from Procopius (6th century), who says that Antae and Sclavenes (Slavs) originally had the common name Sporoi, which has been claimed as a corruption of Srbi (Serbs).

Most non-slavic theories about origin of the croats are from the WWII. Nazi puppet state croatia tried to prove that croatins were not slavs, because slavs weren't "aryan" race. From that time many theories take place, includind scandivian origin of the croats, iranian and so on...

You were right on bulgars, though.

[Silver Rusher]

Heh, that's ironic. Your username is Sarmatian and you live in Serbia

EDIT: Oh, and looky here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theorie...ame_.27Serb.27

[Sarmatian]

Heh, that's ironic. Your username is Sarmatian and you live in Serbia

EDIT: Oh, and looky here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theorie...ame_.27Serb.27

Yes, it is. That's why I chose this username. I didn't say that Iranian/sarmatian theory isn't true, just that it isn't proven. We can not say with certainty that this theory is true. It is one of many theories. There is a theory that all slavs called themselves serbs, for example. Sarmatian/iranian theory tries to explain the name "serbs", not people. France got it's name after the german tribe, franks, but today we do not consider french to have germanic origin.

[Silver Rusher]

OK, sorry, I guess I misenterpreted the first part of your post.

I agree that upon the theory being more connected with the name, but we must remember that migrations of entire groups of people are especially potent. However, links with sarmatians have pretty well completely gone so I guess the argument really goes straight back to the name.

[DukeofSerbia]

Yes, it is. That's why I chose this username. I didn't say that Iranian/sarmatian theory isn't true, just that it isn't proven. We can not say with certainty that this theory is true. It is one of many theories. There is a theory that all slavs called themselves serbs, for example. Sarmatian/iranian theory tries to explain the name "serbs", not people. France got it's name after the german tribe, franks, but today we do not consider french to have germanic origin.

Iranian theory has some weaknesses. Many Croatian historians claim that they came from Iran.

[Papewaio]

Actually I think that only Americans use that term extensively. In Europe it mostly refers to Caucasus inhabitants.
BTW Eurasian is a term that actually exists heh

Australians do as well... so I have the feeling that it is an english term for Europeans in general.

Considering that Eurasia is a single land mass techically you can call anyone on it Eurasian so that definition is not really that useful... as it is too broad.
Eurasian is commonly used to mean someone who has a European parent and an Asian parent... like my son is termed Eurasian.

[L'Impresario]

Hmm, here's wiki's take on it:

Different regions of the world use the term in different ways. In the United States, Caucasian is currently used primarily as a distinction loosely based on skin color alone for a group commonly referred to as White Americans, as defined by the American government and Census Bureau. In Europe, "Caucasian" refers exclusively to people who are from the Caucasus.

In Britain and Ireland the term "Caucasian" is almost never used, White British or "European" is used instead.

BTW these quotes don't refer to any specific research on terminology (apart maybe from frequent poll use), but it agrees with my personal experience and feeling on that word.

And, yes, I 've seen "Eurasian" used almost exclusively in that particular context.