Mongolic peoples

[1] Mongolic-speaking people, although distributed in a wide geographical area, show a high genetic affinity to each other,[2] and display continuity with ancient Northeast Asians.

At the same time, a number of orientalists (Zhukovskaia,[4] Nanzatov,[5] Baldaev[6] and others) consider modern Soyots as a sub-ethnos within the Buryat people: "... here the ethnic composition of the population was formed, which remains relatively stable to this day - Bulagats, Khongodors, Soyots, who (some earlier, others later) became subethnic groups of the Buryats.

Some groups such as Dongxiangs and Bonan people adopted Sunni Islam, as did Moghols in Afghanistan and Mughals in India.

In the earliest known stages, it was intricately tied to all other aspects of social life and to the tribal organization of Mongolian society.

The various Mongolic ethnic groups share a highly similar culture and traditions, but have specific differences in clothing styles and cuisine.

Key traditional elements are throat-singing, the Morin Khuur (horse head fiddle) and other string instruments, and several types of songs.

They subsequently came into contact with other groups, notably Sinitic peoples to their South and Western Steppe Herders to their far West.

The Mongolians pastoralist lifestyle, may in part be derived from the Western Steppe Herders, but without much geneflow between these two groups, suggesting cultural transmission.

The analysis of 175 Mongolic samples, representing 6 ethnic groups, incorporating results of the 1000 Genomes Project panel, revealed genetic homogeneity between different Mongolic groups, and that Northeast, East, and Southeast Asian populations are closer to each other than to other Eurasian populations.

[22] Research by Rogers, et al. provides evidence that some West Eurasian maternal lineages had made it to Mongolia east of the Altai mountains prior to the Bronze Age.

[23][24] During the medieval period, a continuous increase in East Asian mitochondrial lineages was detected, which these authors attribute to Genghis Khan's Pax Mongolica.

[27] There was a male-mediated rise in East Asian ancestry in the late medieval Mongolian period, paralleling the increase of haplogroup C2b.

[31] One autosomal study on Oirat-speaking Kalmyks living in Kalmykia, Eastern Europe, found them to be derived from a Western Mongolian source population.

Sinitic peoples largely lacked any West Eurasian-derived ancestry and displayed primarily affinity with historical Yellow River farmers.