255 dated March 24, 2000, as well as the Russian Census (2002), they are recognized as a separate ethnic group within indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East.

A subsequent relocation to the Altai was driven by their unwillingness to pay yasak (financial tribute) to the Russian sovereign.

[10] N. Aristov linked the Kumandins – and the Chelkans – to the ancient Turks, "who in the 6th-8th CC AD created in Central Asia a powerful nomadic state, which received ... the name Turkic Kaganate".

[11] [12] Potapov regarded the Kumandins as being related anthropologically to the peoples of the Urals, and suggested that they were less East Asian than the Altaians proper.

Six seoks have been identified:[14] An ancient Turkic legend recorded in the Chinese annal (Book of Zhou 周書, 636 CE) mentions the origin of the Göktürks' ancestors from a possession or state named Suǒ (索國; MC: *sak̚-kwək̚), located "north of the Xiongnu country" (which, in this case, apparently meant Mongolia).

[16][19][20][21] The name of the seok Ton is explained as an ethnonym that reflects their economic specialization, as a word meaning "deer" and "reindeer breeder".Potapov (1969), pp.

[23] However, a majority of mitochondrial DNA lines belonged to the North East Asian haplogroups C or D with also a large minority of west Eurasian lineages such as U5a1 (5/52), H8 (3/52), U4b1b (2/52), X2e (2/52), and T1a (1/52).