Is there any genetic heritage in Europe from the Mongols

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• The Mongolian conquests of Russia, Poland, and Hungary were quite alarming to everyone nearby in Europe.
• Europeans were getting used to fighting against the Turks, who employed similar “parthian” tactics, but the Mongols were vastly more proficient and enacted insane slaughters on a huge scale.
• When the Mongols passed through Persia and the Caucasus range, they single-handedly destroyed everything on their way, including the Arabs and Turks who gave so much problems to the crusaders, sometimes with the same tactics.
• According to Francis Conte’s book on the history of the Slavic people, the entire Slavic world was conquered single-handedly, with only the fringes of Poland and Bohemia intact, Hungary crushed, no more Russian principality except in the extreme North because Mongols simply didn’t go there.
• The French were pretty much certain they were next. A French commander stated “If the German Princes are vanquished, the burden of war will fall upon the King of France”, and it was seen as something which could not be won.
• The Mongols were insanely cruel, and the entire western world (and by “western” here, he includes the middle-east, anything west of India) was terrified; the Khwarezmian, which had been thrown back in Persia by the Mongols, were terrified by them, and they themselves terrified the Arab leaders and the Crusader states.
• At the time, it didn’t seem anyone could stop the Mongols and no one actually did until they stopped themselves. Everyone was frightened, and the closer you went to the borders of the Empire, the more imminent the end of the world seemed. Even distant powers (France) that were convinced that if a time came when they had to fight the Mongols themselves, they were pretty much dead.
• At first, the Europeans were dismissive about the Mongols, but this didn’t last long. First, Russian powers were beaten in a heartbeat. Then Subutai fell on Poland and did not have more trouble there than he had elsewhere. Finally, the utter destruction of the Hungarian army and its territory made everyone’s mind that this was the end of the world.
• There were no tactical changes or preparation based on news from the battles.
• The answer to the question of which kingdom would have been ready to fight against the Mongols is probably “no one”.
• According to another Reddit user, the Mongols were not just tactically superior in their conquests, they were also

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• The blog post being discussed claims that the Mongol Empire never existed despite common belief, as most evidence is “circumstantial” or based on known fake materials.
• The author takes issue with the lack of Mongolian written sources and the lack of mentions of Mongols in Russian chronicles, along with the absence of architecture heritage, linguistic borrowings, cultural and judicial borrowings, economical leftovers, numismatic signs, achievements in weaponry, and mentions of Mongolian history in folklore.
• A Redditor responds to the post, providing counterpoints and arguing that the Mongol Empire’s existence cannot seriously be questioned based on the author’s points.
• They mention The Secret History of the Mongols, which is a contemporary source on the life of Genghis Khan and the politics/culture/history of the Great Khanate. The author claims that there are no chronicles or other written works found written in Mongolian script, but the Redditor points out that primary sources on the Mongols exist in Mongol, Chinese, Persian, Japanese, Javanese, Thai, Syriac, Georgian, Ainu, Church Latin, Old French, and Russian.
• There is a brief discussion on Karakorum, which the author claims has no significant buildings leftover. The Redditor suggests that this is not surprising given that the society was originally nomadic and not expected to leave a significant architectural footprint.
• There is also mention of Mongol bows, which were an evolution from recurve/composite bows and could fire up to 500m, and Mongol coins used under Kublai Khan, which were made of paper and used extensively in most of the “civilized” parts of the empire.
• The Redditor refers to a genetic study by Oxford University that found evidence of Mongolian admixture in Eurasian populations and provides a link to its précis.
• There is also a brief discussion on Russian culture being a unique fusion of east and west, with the influence of nobility and Soviet-era changes mentioned.

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• In the r/history subreddit, a user posted the question “Did the Mongols conscript non-Mongols in their army?”.
• Another user responded that during their invasion of Japan, the Mongols made use of Chinese or Jurchen soldiers.
• There were significant amounts of Genghisid princes involved in combat, but these could reflect leadership more than the soldiers.
• It’s not clear what specific proportions of Mongols to non-Mongols were in Batu Khan’s army during the Mongol invasion of Europe.
• There were locally recruited Turkic soldiers as well as Mongols, that’s about it.
• The Mongols had significant amounts of cattle, which they used as a source for milk and meat.
• The geography of the steppes region, spanning from Hungary to Korea, was ideal for the nomadic Mongols and their horses, whose herds fared well in the area.
• The Mongols were a fully nomadic people, which meant they had no homes and they brought their family along with them on campaigns. Women were tasked with gathering and taking care of the young and wounded soldiers. The young were tasked with taking care of the herds.
• The Mongol soldier was generally self-sufficient, they were great hunters and because they didn’t come from a settled society, they weren’t reliant on farms.
• However, they did have a minimal “supply line.” The Mongols learned the art of siege and always brought Chinese engineers with them for advising the sieging or using them for engineering and whatnot. They could have their spare horses to carry items that the Chinese engineers needed when away for a while. But they were constantly campaigning in China, so they were definitely reliant on recruiting people from the area, especially if they were nomadic like themselves.
• Batu, the son of Jochi (one of the sons of Genghis Khan), was sent with an army of over 100,000 and some great Mongol generals and commanders such as Subutai, Mongke (future Great Khan), Bajdar, Kedan, and Orda to invade the regions west of Central Asia.
• The descendants of Jochi would go on to create powerful houses in their respective regions farther away from where Ogedei, the Great Khan, administered Northern China. Eventually, Batu’s territories will be known in the West as the Golden Horde and in the East as the Khaganate of the Kipchaks.
• The Mongols weren’t a homogeneous group

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• The Mongol invasions led to the emergence of the Ilkhanate, the first unified state in Persia for a long time.
• Turko-Mongol nomads population increased in regions where their presence was uncommon, such as Eastern Persia or Iran, following the invasion.
• The downfall of the Golden Horde allowed Moscow to become the leader of Russian lands, giving it the military and economic power to crush the other major cities of the region and creating a centralized state.
• The Crimean Khanate, a state ruled by the descendants of the Golden Horde in what is now modern-day Ukraine, was eventually destroyed by Russia after its rulers refused to give up slave raids in the area.
• In Central Asia, the rise of the Timurids was the main legacy of the Mongol rule in the region. Timur was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan and tried to follow his rule. He devastated parts of Iran and Delhi and left a legacy of influence in Samarkand and Bukhara and the rise of the Durranis in Afghanistan.
• The Yuan Dynasty consolidated the unification of China, and for the first time, brought together the northern empires and Song dynasty in a unified territory.
• The Mongol invasion of the Middle East devastated Iran, and some regions became forcibly desertified due to the loss of specialized agricultural infrastructure. The Mongols sacked Baghdad leading to the loss of prestige of the Muslims among other effects.
• Military conflicts and cultural strife caused the downfall of the Yuan dynasty in China. Khubilai ran into the typhoons in two invasions of Japan, and had to accept a local defeat, combined with his own Sinification and issues among the Yuan rulers.
• The Mongols did introduce gunpowder but this only indirectly shaped the evolution of the Great Gunpowder Empires.
• Strong evidence suggests that the Mongols caused a high level of suffering, deaths, and other negative impacts when they conquered settled societies.
• Kazakhstan, a country that borders Mongolia, has a higher percentage of the population with red hair and light-colored eyes than any other country in the world. This might be due to the migration of members of the Golden Horde, which was made up of some Mongols.
• The migrations of Mongols also led to a high occurrence of Down Syndrome in the population of Mung Jalair clan.
• Mongolia was subject to Soviet control, and as such, records were destroyed, which could make it difficult to trace genetic heritage.

• The Huns (Xiongnu) were a steppe nomad society that possibly came from the Yenisei-Ob Region in the Minusinsk Basin.
• They spoke a Yeniseian language when they expanded out into the Mongolian Steppes and formed the Xiongnu Empire.
• The Huns then assimilated the Turkic-speaking Dingling, Xinli, and Gekun peoples and experienced a language flip before migrating into Europe.
• The Chinese histories trace Mongolic speaking peoples from the Donghu, a confederation destroyed by the Xiongnu around the time of the Qin Dynasty.
• The Donghu remnants in Manchuria spawned the Xianbei, who would also experience a language flip to Turkic when they migrated towards Europe later on.
• The Mongols were Mongolic-speakers, and Mongolic and Turkic are closely related languages.
• The Mongols originated South of Lake Baikal near the tributaries of the Amur River, East of the Orkhon, in the 12th Century AD, a completely different location than the Huns.
• The Eurasian Steppes are a relatively homogenous melting pot and were dominated by Iranic-speaking nomads until the Huns came and dominated by Turkic-speakers until today (barring Mongolia, mostly).
• By the time the Mongol identity and “ethnicity” emerged, the Huns had been gone for 500-600 years.
• The Huns were thought to be the Xiongnu, or at least part of the Xiongnu, who assimilated other groups and migrated into Europe.
• There is no mention of any genetic heritage in Europe from the Mongols in the text.

[Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7d70g2/were_the_huns_and_mongols_related/]

• A post on the r/AncestryDNA subreddit from 4 years ago discusses the ancestry results of a person with both Han Chinese and Mongol heritage, who found that the results from 23andme and wegene were slightly different with regard to the percentage of Mongol ancestry.
• The person is surprised by their high percentage of Mongol ancestry given that their parents had told them they were 100% Han Chinese, and wonders whether events like the Mongol invasions or the establishment of the Qing dynasty could have led to such high percentages of Mongol ancestry among Northern Chinese people.
• One reddit user comments that a genetic study showed that 8% of men in Asia were directly descended from Genghis Khan, and that most Han Chinese probably have some Mongol ancestry.
• The original poster is confused by the difference in Mongol ancestry percentage between the two genetic tests, and the comments section discusses potential reasons for this variation, including differences in genetic databases used and what populations are being compared.
• Some commenters also discuss the limitations of relying solely on genetic ancestry results to understand one’s heritage, as ancestry tests do not always capture the complexities of human migration and cultural exchange.
• Others suggest that trying to identify one’s ancestry based on the results of a single test may not be accurate or helpful, and that genealogical research and family history may provide more meaningful insights into one’s background.

Note: the webpage does not provide any information about genetic heritage of the Mongols in Europe.

• The original post on r/NoStupidQuestions was titled “Do eastern European people have trace Mongolian ancestry?” and was made 6 years ago.
• There are comments from two Reddit users on the post, one with 2 karma and the other with 1 karma.
• According to one of the Reddit users, “modern population genetics demonstrates” that Russians/Belorussians don’t have any detectable contribution from Mongols. They have a bit of an “east-siberian component” due to the assimilation of an indigenous pre-Slavic Siberian-related population in the sparsely populated and unaffected Northeastern part of European Russia.
• Balts are genetically close to original Europeans and almost unaffected by late migrations, according to the same user.
• The user also writes that Finns are also a highly isolated group, and some Finnic peoples living in Russia, such as Mari, have a considerably elevated east-siberian component, while Komi and Udmurts have the same as the northeastern Russians. Again, this has to do with their Siberian heritage and not Mongols.
• The same user writes that Ukrainians are genetically almost identical to Russians/Belorussians, but they might harbor certain slight gene flow from the steppes due to nomadic tribes wandering into the Black Sea steppes from Central Asia but only a few rare individuals possess clear East-Asian traits.
• The Reddit user also mentions their paternal ancestors being transbaikal Cossack guarding Russian-Chinese/Mongolian border for centuries, and they share 0,01% of their studied DNA with Mongols.
• Another Reddit user writes that their wife is Bulgarian, and they sometimes see people who look “downright Asian” in Bulgaria. These people are “pure” Bulgarian for generations before them, but the Mongol invasion reached as far as northern Bulgaria. The Ottoman Empire formed only a few years later but lasted for centuries, reaching as far as Baghdad, Iraq, and all the way up to Croatia and having many overlaps with the route of the Mongol invasion. Finally, slaves get bought, sold, and deported, leading to a massive mix of race across a vast area of land.

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Identify similarities and differences in genetic heritage between Mongols and Europeans

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History of Mongol invasions and their effects on Europe