Genomic study of the Ket: a Paleo-Eskimo-related ethnic group with significant ancient North Eurasian ancestry

TLDR

The Kets are a nomadic hunter‑gatherer group in Siberia whose language is unclassified. The study aimed to explore genetic links between the Kets and Siberian/North American populations, focusing on Mal’ta and Paleo‑Eskimo genomes. The authors genotyped >130,000 autosomal SNPs, characterized mitochondrial and Y‑chromosomal haplogroups, and sequenced two Ket genomes at high coverage. The Kets cluster with Nganasans, Selkups, and Yukaghirs as the Siberian populations most closely related to Paleo‑Eskimos, share high Mal’ta ancestry with Selkups and Bronze/Iron Age Altai groups, and this pattern supports a possible Ket‑Na‑Dene language macrofamily.

Abstract

Abstract The Kets, an ethnic group in the Yenisei River basin, Russia, are considered the last nomadic hunter-gatherers of Siberia, and Ket language has no transparent affiliation with any language family. We investigated connections between the Kets and Siberian and North American populations, with emphasis on the Mal’ta and Paleo-Eskimo ancient genomes, using original data from 46 unrelated samples of Kets and 42 samples of their neighboring ethnic groups (Uralic-speaking Nganasans, Enets, and Selkups). We genotyped over 130,000 autosomal SNPs, identified mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal haplogroups, and performed high-coverage genome sequencing of two Ket individuals. We established that Nganasans, Kets, Selkups, and Yukaghirs form a cluster of populations most closely related to Paleo-Eskimos in Siberia (not considering indigenous populations of Chukotka and Kamchatka). Kets are closely related to modern Selkups and to some Bronze and Iron Age populations of the Altai region, with all these groups sharing a high degree of Mal’ta ancestry. Implications of these findings for the linguistic hypothesis uniting Ket and Na-Dene languages into a language macrofamily are discussed.