Monday, February 17, 2003

Genghis Kahn may be the ancestor of 16 million men in Central Asia

According to Nicholas Wade of the NY Times, a remarkable living legacy of the Mongol empire has been discovered by geneticists in a survey of human populations from the Caucasus to China. They find that as many as 8 percent of the men dwelling in the confines of the former Mongol empire bear Y chromosomes that seem characteristic of the Mongol ruling house. If so, some 16 million men, or half a percent of the world's male population, can probably claim descent from Genghis Khan. David Morgan, a historian of Mongol studies said "Its pretty clear what they were doing when they were not fighting."

I wish they would do a study like that of potential descendants of the Julii or some other famous Roman family group.

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