The warrior-priestess woman ―​ A documentary on the NGC

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
It ended a few minutes ago on the local (dubbed) broadcast of National Geographic - Europe. I took notes of the flow.

The Russian archeologist Leonid Jablonsky conducts an excavation at the southern Russian steppes north of the Black Sea. Digging up a seemingly undisturbed kurgan, the American colleague Janine Davies Kimble joins him. They discover a grand grave of a warrior with a complete skeleton with perfect bones and the skull including the chin. The body was burried in "attacking position" which isn't extraordinary for a warrior. They find a lot of artifacts including an earring, plentiful gold, lots of arrowheads and a mirror with a bronze handle. Further research, including the DNA tests, reveal that the body belongs to a warrior woman, who was also a kind of priestess, lived in the 6. - 4. centuries BC.

The German physical anthropologist Joachim Berger conducts further DNA research in München and Mainz, which prove the earlier conclusion. Jablonsky and Kinble consider the probability of the grave being related to Sarmatians but Kimble travels to the western part of Mongolia (near Ölgiy) inhabited by Kazaks, a Turk people, for field research within nomadic families.

She comes up with a traditional archery contest amongst women in which real composite bows are used. The women are also decorated with acessories identical to those found in the grave and depicted on ancient Greek vases.

She's told that one of the nomadic families have a blonde daughter with brown eyes. She goes to visit "Meryemgül" and her family, who are continuing the nomadic lifestyle complete with horseback riding, herding, living in the Jurts et. (The only alien element on the screen was one of the native girls wearing a denim jacket. ) The Jurt is decorated with artifacts again identical to the burial findings.

Finally she collects mithacondrial DNA samples from Meryemgül and her mother. Berger compares them with the samples taken from the warrior-priestess' bones.

They are in very close proximity.

.

[Steppe Merc]

Yeah, its a Scythian or similar Iranian, no doubt. The mirror is found in all women's kurgans. And many Iranians were absorbed by the Turks, and the Mongols, though Mongols less so because they were later.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
The really interesting part is that either the offspring or very close relatives of the warrior-priestess migrated eastwards and settled thousands of kilometres away.


.

[nokhor]

Mouza buddy, you usually take notes while you're watching TV? that's kinda nerdy. you smarty smart guy you.

on a serious note, since the steppes is one of the great intersection points of human migration, i wonder what percentage of the ostensibly turkish peoples currently living there today, are also descended from iranians, mongols, russians and chinese.

[Steppe Merc]

Well Mongols and Turks were once sort of the same, then split up (there language base is similar, though not mutually understandable).
Steppe people always either absorbed their enemies, or their enemies moved on (traditionally West, ending up in Hungary). For example, by the time the Mongols conquered Russia, they were primarily Turks. The "Golden Horde" is often called the Qipchaq Horde, because it was primarily made up of Turkic Qipchaq (Kuman) that they defeated. As for Russians, more would probably be Turkish than Turks Russians. Turks never really defeated the Russians, but many Turks served or joined the Russians. And steppe people didn't absorb settled peoples that often, which would lesson the Chinese and Russian as well. It is more often that the nomads settle and are absorbed instead of vice versa.
It is possible that the Scythians moved East instead of the traditional West, or at least some of them. But the Scythians did have large reaches in the East.

[Kraxis]

I made a comment on this a few month ago... Nice to see someone else had watched it.

The scientists actually concluded that the girl and the woman in the grave were directly related, not just distantly, but directly given the similarity of the normal DNA and the mitochondrial DNA. It is though possible that the girl is not a grand grand grand ect ect -child of said woman, but of the woman's sister (would have the same mitochondrial DNA).

I was duly fascinated by this, and it is most interesting.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

Well Mongols and Turks were once sort of the same, then split up (there language base is similar, though not mutually understandable).

I wouldn't subscribe to that idea very easily. The similarity in the languages is limited to grammar (and such similarities exist between Japanese, Magyar, Finnish etc.). There are seemingly no cognates and serious differences in phonetical structures. However, the two people (and most probably many more, who are not represented in modern day folks) have blended with each other speedily from earliest times due to the life conditions and cultures of the steppes.

The Qıbchaq khanate in Russia, AFAIK, predates the Golden Horde. (Qibchaqs were basically the part of Kumans who adopted Islam.) Many offsprings of Genghis's assimilated amongst large Turk and Iranian populations adopting their language eventually. The dynasties of the fragments of the Golden Horde kept to their Mongol ancestry and Genghis's Yasa for long even after they abandoned their language to that of the local population. Same is valid for Tamerlane and his line.

Mouza buddy, you usually take notes while you're watching TV? that's kinda nerdy. you smarty smart guy you.

Not unless I'm going to make a Monastry thread.
.

[GoreBag]

For example, by the time the Mongols conquered Russia, they were primarily Turks. The "Golden Horde" is often called the Qipchaq Horde, because it was primarily made up of Turkic Qipchaq (Kuman) that they defeated.

Or hired, or pressed, or convinced...the Golden Horde was only an army run by Mongols, not composed of them.