A recent groundbreaking historical genetics paper reported results which indicated that a substantial proportion of men in the world are direct line descendants of Genghis Khan. By direct line, I mean that they carry Y chromosomes which seem to have come down from an individual who lived approximately 1,000 years ago. As Y chromosomes are only passed from father to son, that would mean that the Y is a record of one’s patrilineage.

Genghis Khan died ~750 years ago, so assuming 25 years per generation, you get about 30 men between the present and that period. In more quantitative terms, ~10% of the men who reside within the borders of the Mongol Empire as it was at the death of Genghis Khan may carry his Y chromosome, and so ~0.5% of men in the world, about 16 million individuals alive today, do so.

Since 2003 there have been other cases of “super-Y” lineages. For example the Manchu lineage and the Uí Néill lineage. The existence of these Y chromosomal lineages, which have burst upon the genetic landscape like explosive stars sweeping aside all other variation before them, indicates a periodic it “winner-take-all” dynamic in human genetics more reminiscent of hyper-polygynous mammals such as elephant seals. As we do not exhibit the sexual dimorphism which is the norm in such organisms, it goes to show the plasticity of outcome due to the flexibility of human cultural forms.

Jason Goldman of Thoughtful Animal reminded me of the 2003 paper a few days ago, so I thought it would be useful to review it again for new readers (as I know most of you have not been reading for 7 years!). To understand how one Y chromosomal lineage can have such a wide distribution across such a large proportion of the human race, here is a quote attributed to Genghis Khan:

The greatest joy for a man is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all they possess, to see those they love in tears, to ride their horses, and to hold their wives and daughters in his arms.

You’re probably more familiar with the paraphrase in Conan the Barbarian.

The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols: "We have identified a Y-chromosomal lineage with several unusual features. It was found in 16 populations throughout a large region of Asia, stretching from the Pacific to the Caspian Sea, and was present at high frequency: ∼8% of the men in this region carry it, and it thus makes up ∼0.5% of the world total. The pattern of variation within the lineage suggested that it originated in Mongolia ∼1,000 years ago. Such a rapid spread cannot have occurred by chance; it must have been a result of selection. The lineage is carried by likely male-line descendants of Genghis Khan, and we therefore propose that it has spread by a novel form of social selection resulting from their behavior."

What is social selection? In this context it’s pretty obvious, the Mongol Empire was the personal property of the “Golden Family,” the family of Genghis Khan. More precisely this came to consist of the descendants of Genghis Khan’s four sons by his first and primary wife, Jochi, Chagatai, Ogedei, and Tolui. Like descent from the gods in the mythology of the Classical World, or the House of David in medieval Christian monarchies, a line back to Genghis Khan became a necessary precondition for fitness to be a ruler in the centuries after the rise of the Mongol Empire across much of Asia.

To me the power and fury of the Mongol expansion, the awe and magnetism which Genghis Khan’s bloodline held for Asiatic societies in the wake of their world conquest, is attested to by the fact that descent from Genghis Khan became a mark of prestige even within Islamic societies.

Timur claimed a relationship to Chagatai. His descendants in India, the Timurids, retained pride in their Genghiside heritage. In Russia among the Muslim Tatars and in Central Asia among the Uzbeks descent from Genghis Khan was a major calling card for any would-be warlord.

This is peculiar in light of the fact that Genghis Khan, and his near descendants, were non-Muslims! Not only were they non-Muslims, but the Mongol assault on West Asian Muslims societies was particularly deleterious; it is generally assumed that Iran and Mesopotamia’s relatively productive irrigation system were wrecked during the Mongol conquests to the point where it took centuries for them to rebound to their previous levels of productivity. More symbolically, it was the Mongols who finally extinguished the Abbasid Caliphate.

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