A.I. Levshin (1798–1879) – Description of the Kyrgyz-Kaisak Hordes and Steppes
(This article, in an abridged translation, was presented to the Asiatic Society in Paris and published in the Journal asiatique, December 1828.)
As we begin the historical description of the Kyrgyz-Kaisaks, we consider it our first duty to state that they have been given a foreign name in Europe—one that neither they themselves nor their neighbors, except for the Russians, use to refer to them. This name is composed of two words—Kyrgyz and Kaisak.
The word Kyrgyz refers to a people known not for their connections with the Kyrgyz-Kaisaks, but rather for their ancient enmity toward them. These people still exist today under the names Kara-Kyrgyz, Mountain Kyrgyz, and Buruts. The word Kaisak, or Kasak, is a corrupted form of Kazak (Cossack) a name that, according to some Eastern writers, dates back to a time before the birth of Christ.
We shall not delve into whether this claim is accurate or not, but we will state that the name Kazak, which in the Middle Ages was also adopted by various branches of the Russian people, has belonged to the Kyrgyz-Kaisak hordes since the beginning of their existence. To this day, they call themselves nothing other than Kazakh (Kazak).
They are also known by this name among the Persians, Bukharians, Khivans, and other peoples of Asia. The Chinese, softening the initial K, pronounce it as Hasak. Until the 18th century, even in Russia, the Kyrgyz-Kaisaks were unknown under this name, being referred to instead as Kazakhs or the Cossack Horde. (In The History of the Russian State (Vol. IX, Note 646), it is stated: “The Kyrgyz-Kaisak Horde is commonly referred to as the Cossack Horde in the Nogai records.” This is also evident from chronicles.)
To determine the reasons why the Kazakhs received a name so altered and so ill-suited to them, it is first necessary to provide an understanding of the true Kyrgyz, or, as mentioned earlier, the Kara-Kyrgyz (the wild Kyrgyz, the Buruts, and the same). [136]
Abulgazi Bahadur states that one of the grandsons of Oghuz Khan was called Kyrgyz (Genealogical History of the Tatars, Part 2, Chapter 2). According to Abulgazi’s genealogy, Oghuz Khan was a ninth-generation descendant of Japheth, and therefore, he asserts that the Kyrgyz must be his descendants.
This account is not a historical fact but rather an imitation of the genealogical traditions of many Asian peoples, who often derive their names from legendary ancestors or rulers.
Regardless of their exact origins, the Kyrgyz are one of the most ancient peoples of Asia. In 569 AD, Zemarchus, an envoy of Emperor Justin II, was sent from Constantinople to Dizabul, the great khan of the Turks, who were then nomadic in northeastern Asia and known as Tu-jue (Türks). Upon his departure, Dizabul presented him with a slave of Herghis or Kyrgyz origin (Tableaux historiques de l’Asie, p. 117, Klaproth).
Abulgazi also mentions (Genealogical History, Part 2, Chapter 4) that the Kyrgyz were a powerful people long before the time of Genghis Khan. Later, he describes how their khan, Urus, voluntarily submitted to this great conqueror of the East (ibid., Part 2, Chapter 8, Introduction to Siberian History), and places their homeland between the rivers Selenga and Ikar-Muran.
According to Fischer, this latter river corresponds to today’s Yellow River (Huang He). Klaproth (Journal asiatique, 1823, Vol. 7), instead of Ikar-Muran, which appears in old French and Russian translations of Abulgazi Bahadur, reads Uygur-Muran (Muran meaning “river”) in the original text and identifies it with the Yenisei.
If Fischer’s interpretation is correct, then it must be concluded that the Kyrgyz, who after Genghis Khan were given to his son Tolui (Abulgazi Bahadur, Part 2, Chapter 9), later changed their place of residence.
This is supported by the account of William of Rubruck, who visited Karakorum, the capital of Möngke Khan, in 1254. By that time, the Kyrgyz were no longer located between the Huang He (Ikar-Muran) and the Selenga, where they had lived before and during the time of Genghis Khan. Instead, they had moved north of Karakorum (see: Voyage de Rubrouck, Chapter 39).
The exact location of Karakorum has not been definitively established. However, based on William of Rubruck’s travel route, it is evident that the city lay west of Lake Baikal, most likely near the headwaters of the Yenisei or Selenga. Klaproth places it on the upper Orkhon, though the Orkhon flows into the Selenga.
Thus, by the time of the Siberian conquest, the Kyrgyz were already settled in approximately the same areas where they would later be found. (We do not include here Chapter 16 of Rubruck’s travels, in which he mentions Kyrgyz living in the Caucasus Mountains.)
Here, Kyrgyz is mistakenly used instead of Circassian. Fischer, in his History of Siberia, explains this error well, attributing it to the incorrect pronunciation of Italian words. Langlès, in the Geographical Table attached to his translation of Des Institutes de Tamerlan, writes: “The Kerkes are neighbors of the Georgians. We call them Circassians.”
The same should be understood when reading Witsen in Noord en Oost Tartarye (Amsterdam, 1705, p. 592): “The Kerkes, who live not far from Azov, are Christians like the Abkhazians.” This was also how they were referred to by the Russians.
Fischer attributes the migration of the Kyrgyz from Ikar-Muran to the north to the period of the Thirty Years’ War between the descendants of Ögedei and Tolui (History of Siberia, Introduction, § 57), which was described by Gaubil. However, this assumption contradicts the account of William of Rubruck, who traveled through Mongol lands long before the internecine war among Genghis Khan’s descendants and already found the Kyrgyz in their new settlements.
Klaproth, on the other hand, interprets the passage from Abulgazi Bahadur’s History differently. Firstly, as previously noted, he reads Uygur-Muran instead of Ikar-Muran in the Tatar text (Mémoires relatifs à l’Asie, p. 163 et seq.). Secondly, he asserts that this Uygur-Muran, or Uygur River, is in fact the Yenisei. Based on this, he argues that the Kyrgyz lived in the same places during Genghis Khan’s time as where the Russians later found them when they conquered Siberia.
To support this claim, he cites excerpts from Chinese historians of the Yuan Dynasty, which ruled from 1280 to 1367. According to their descriptions, the land belonging to the Kyrgyz (Ki-li-ki-szu, read as Kirkis) lay 10,000 li northwest of Beijing. It was 1,400 li long and about half as wide.
A river called Kian flowed through this land, merging with another river, Angkola (Angara), before emptying into a sea to the northwest. This is the Yenisei, Klaproth states, whose upper course is still called Kem (Khem).
To the southwest of this land was the Opu River (Ob), while to the northeast flowed the Yusiu (Yus), which emptied into the Ob. When the Russians conquered Siberia, this was where the Kyrgyz had their main encampments.
Klaproth further adds that, according to unanimous Chinese historical sources, the people known as Kyrgyz during the Mongol era were called Hakiazu during the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD). Following the phonetic conventions of Chinese transcriptions of foreign names, this should be pronounced Khakas.
The Khakas were of the same stock as the Hoihe or Hoihu (Uighurs) and spoke the same language. The Uighurs themselves descended from the Xiongnu, which means that the Kyrgyz, or Khakas, were of Turkic origin. Under the earlier Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), the same people were known as Kian-kuen (Gyan-Gunn).
During the period when they were called Khakas, Klaproth continues, their customs were not as wild as they are now. They already had a writing system and maintained significant trade with the Arabs, Bukharians, and other Western peoples, particularly with the Khazars, who lived along the Volga and Don and had frequent interactions with the emperors of Constantinople.
The Khazars received an alphabet from Constantine of Thessalonica, also known as Cyril, which contained Greek and Slavic letters. This alphabet may have been passed down to the Kyrgyz and remained in use among them until their conversion to Islam.
This, according to Klaproth, explains why inscriptions found on stones in Siberia (in lands historically belonging to the Kyrgyz) contain a mix of Greek and Slavic letters alongside many unknown symbols.
Assessing the validity of this theory is beyond our concern here. However, we include it because, in presenting this idea, one of the most prominent Orientalists of our time incorporated information from Chinese chronicles that help explain the history of the Kyrgyz.
(Plano Carpini also mentions the Kyrgyz twice in Chapter 5 of his description of the Tatars, but his reports are too confused and inconsistent. At one point, he places this people to the east, then a few pages later claims that they extend south of the lands where Genghis Khan and Ögedei Khan once roamed. See the edition by Yazikov, pp. 138, 158.)
The fate of this people from the 14th century until the end of the 16th century remains unknown. However, throughout the 17th century, their name frequently appears in Siberian chronicles.
Living between the Tom and Yenisei Rivers, along the White and Black Yus Rivers, near the Abakan, and in the vicinity of the Sayan Mountains, the Kyrgyz spent nearly a century raiding and plundering the newly established Russian settlements in their neighboring territories.
During this time, they repeatedly shifted their allegiance between Russia, the Mongol Altan Khan, and the ruler of Dzungaria (see: The History of Siberia by Fischer and Miller, and the Siberian Chronicles).
•1607 – After being defeated by Siberian Cossacks, the Kyrgyz recognized Russian authority.
•1609 – They killed Russian envoys sent to collect tribute (yasak) and then launched an attack on the Chulym territories.
•1614 – They persuaded all the Tatars under Russian rule and subject to yasak taxation to rebel against Russia, then devastated the outskirts of Tomsk.
•1619 – They submitted to the Mongol Altan Khan.
•1622 – They raided Kuznetsk, destroyed the Obin Tatars, and pillaged what is now Tomsk Province.
•1628 – They incited the Aryan and Kachin Tatars to attack Russians who were constructing the Krasnoyarsk fortress.
Once the fortress was completed, the Kyrgyz, fearing its proximity, began to see the Russians as a greater threat than the Mongols. They started paying yasak and promised to renounce their allegiance to the Altan Khan—on the condition that the Russians build a fortress on the Kamchik River to protect them from Mongol incursions. However, despite this agreement, in 1630, the Kyrgyz once again plundered the surroundings of Krasnoyarsk.
•1633 or 1634 – Led by their prince Bekhten, they laid siege to Kuznetsk and pillaged its outskirts, while another group simultaneously ravaged the areas around Krasnoyarsk.
•1635 – They launched another attack on both cities but were repelled.
•1642 – The Dzungar ruler Batur (Bagatur), during negotiations with Russian envoys, already referred to the Kyrgyz as his subjects and their prince as his relative, citing a treaty signed with them a few years earlier.
•1646 – A Russian envoy, Danila Arshinsky, was sent to Batur with the message that, although the Kyrgyz had previously defected, they had once again recognized Russian sovereignty (*all these details are taken from Fischer’s History).
•1652 – Altan Khan led a military campaign into Kyrgyz lands, attempting to subjugate them. Some fled into Russian territory, and Russian negotiations with the Mongols secured their temporary protection. However, this only postponed their fate.
•1657 – Altan Khan’s son and heir, Lobzan (Lobzan-Tushetu-Khan, called Louzan in Siberian Histories), launched a powerful invasion and completely subdued the Kyrgyz. It is unclear how long they remained under his rule, but it is well documented that both the Russians and the Dzungar Kalmyks were repeatedly forced to fight against them and suppress their uprisings.
Finally, at the end of the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century, the Dzungar Khuntaiji, with the agreement of the Russian government, forced the Kyrgyz to migrate to the mountains between Andijan (Anzizhzhang) and Kashgar.
The first account of this migration comes from near-contemporary witnesses—namely, Swedish officers who had been captured by the Russians and lived in Siberia in the early 18th century (see: notes by the French translator in “Histoire Généalogique des Tatares,” printed in 1726, and Recueil de Voyages au Nord, Vol. 10, 1738).
Although these officers did not specify the exact location where the Kyrgyz were resettled by the Dzungar ruler and only speculated that they had been moved near India, Fischer (History of Siberia, Introduction, § 58) later confirmed the migration of the Kyrgyz.
(Among the Bashkir people, there is a volost (administrative unit) or a tribe called Kyrgyz. It is reasonable to assume that they are a branch of the Kyrgyz (Buruts) described here, but when they joined the Bashkirs is unknown, and investigating this matter is beyond the scope of this work.)
Fischer, however, did not definitively determine their new place of settlement. Later discoveries and Russia’s expanding trade relations with Central Asia confirmed to the scholarly world that the Kyrgyz now lived between Andijan and Kashgar—between the domains of the present-day Kokand Khan and Lesser Bukharia—in the mountains known to the Chinese as the Yarkand, Kashgar, and Ush mountains, and to Russian Tatars trading in the region as Alatau, Aktau, and Kyrgyz-Tau.
(De Guignes, in his Histoire des Huns, des Turcs, Vol. 2, Ch. 2, unjustifiably claims that the Kyrgyz, or Kerkis, are the same as the Circassians. This error likely arose due to the phonetic similarity of their names, as mentioned earlier.)
Modern Chinese geographers report the same, usually referring to the Kyrgyz as Buruts. Both names are now associated with the same people, but it is unclear whether the Buruts and the Kyrgyz were always a single ethnographic group.
From earlier Chinese historical records, we have already shown that the Kyrgyz once occupied parts of southern Siberia in ancient times. Regarding the Buruts, the following information about them is found in the newly revised edition of the Chinese geographical work Tai-Qing Yi-Tong-Zhi (Comprehensive Gazetteer of the Great Qing), Chapter 420:
“When the Northern Hui ruled, the people who lived in the lands of the present-day Buruts were called Po-lu. During the Tang Dynasty, they were known as Pu-lu or Po-lü. They were divided into Greater and Lesser Pulu. Initially, they lived south of the mountains in the southern part of this region but later migrated north of them. Since the Tang era, the Chinese have had no further contact with them.” (Magasin asiatique, Klaproth, p. 12).
Further in the same book, it states:
“The name Pulu closely resembles Boru, and there is no doubt that the people known as Pulu are, in fact, the Buruts.”
From this, it can be concluded that the Buruts had already settled in their present location as early as the 5th and 6th centuries AD. The Kyrgyz likely merged with them after their expulsion from southern Siberia.
Chinese geographers divide the present-day Buruts into Eastern and Western groups. The Eastern Buruts extend as far as the territory of Aksu, while to the northeast, they border the Ili province and consist of five tribes.
The Western Buruts, who live west of the Eastern Buruts and are surrounded to the southeast by the Tsunghu Mountains, are divided into fifteen tribes. Both groups were officially incorporated into the Chinese Empire after the conquest of Dzungaria in the mid-18th century. However, this subjugation was more nominal than real, similar to many other so-called subject territories in Asia.
G. Timkovsky, in his Journey to China, provides the following information about the Buruts, translated from Chinese sources (see: Timkovsky, Journey to China, Vol. 1, p. 257, and an excerpt from the Chinese book Xi-yu-sun-jiang-lu):
“The Kyrgyz, known in Chinese as Buruts, are a nomadic people living west of Eastern Turkestan. Their vast territory lies between Anzizhzhang (Andijan) and Kashgar. They call their rulers biys. Some biys govern between 10 and 20 ulus (tribal units), while others rule over 20 to 30 ulus.
The people of these ulus are considered their subjects. ‘Kyrgyz’ is the general name for this people, who are divided into numerous hordes, each with its own biy. Their leadership is hereditary, and very few biys are subordinate to one another.
The Kyrgyz shave their heads, do not eat pork, wear clothing with narrow sleeves, and their hats are square with a flat top. Women, instead of jewelry, adorn their hats with pheasant feathers. Their customs and language are nearly identical to those of Eastern Turkestan, with only minor differences.
They live in felt yurts and sustain themselves primarily through livestock herding. Meat is their main food, and kumis serves as their substitute for wine—similar to the Oluts and the Dzungars.
They highly value Chinese porcelain, tea, brocades, cloth, tobacco, and wine, considering these goods precious. The Kyrgyz are poor but fearless; they do not care for life, are greedy, inclined to robbery, and brave in battle.
The Hasaks (Kazakhs) and Belurs (Beluds/Balochs) fear them, and even the powerful Dzungars, at their height, were unable to subjugate them.
They plundered both Eastern Turkestanis traveling beyond their borders and foreign merchants from Greater Bukharia and other regions who entered Eastern Turkestan.
However, after the Chinese military conquest of the Western Frontier (1756, following the fall of Dzungaria), the Kyrgyz ceased their raids.
Every year, their biys send their elders to the city of Ush, where they meet with the Manchu general to request horses for tribute to the imperial court.
In the 23rd year of Qianlong’s reign (1758), during the war against the rebel Khojam, a biy living near Kashgar, fearing the power of the Qing Empire, joined the war against Khojam with 19 of his sultans and fought with all his forces. As a reward, he was appointed a judge in the city of Beshbalik.
The princes under his rule were also granted ranks and peacock feathers. Today, his subjects still nomadize deep within the mountains and forests of Yarkand, Kashgar, and Ush, peacefully engaged in livestock herding.”
We include this description here to corroborate reports about the geographical location of the land presently inhabited by the so-called wild Kyrgyz.
As for the ethnographic details provided by the author of Xi-yu-wen-jiang-lu, we do not consider them entirely accurate. Upon reading the above passage, one might assume that the Buruts, once fearless raiders, became peaceful neighbors and settled farmers after 1756.
However, historical events prove the opposite—not only did they remain a predatory and dangerous people throughout the latter half of the 18th century, but they continue to be so to this day.
On this point, we refer to the Chinese author Prince Qishi, whose fascinating account of the Torgut migration (1771) from Russia to China—translated into Russian by G. Lipovtsov—was published in the Siberian Herald in 1820. Qishi writes:
“The Buruts, who despise all social virtues, are distinguished from all their neighboring peoples by their extreme cruelty and savage nature.”
The Kyrgyz, constantly engaged in raids, plundering, and killing, never put down their weapons at any time… Upon learning of the Torguts’ approach to their borders, these fierce barbarians were overcome with unusual excitement. In a state of ecstatic frenzy, they rode through their ulus, congratulating one another as if it were a great festive celebration.
Many Asian merchants who traveled along the Siberian and Orenburg trade routes and passed near the lands of the wild Kyrgyz, having the misfortune of experiencing their savage nature, confirm that the Kyrgyz have preserved to this day all the cruelty and greed for plunder that distinguished them in the past.
G. Klaproth, discussing the aforementioned Siberian inscriptions (see: Journal asiatique, 1823, Vol. 7), contradicts himself elsewhere by confusing the Buruts with the Kazakhs. He claims that the Naiman tribe, which makes up a significant part of the Middle Kazakh Horde, belonged to the wild Kyrgyz, who once lived along the Ob and Yenisei Rivers (see: Journal asiatique, November 1824).
To distinguish them, he refers to the Buruts as “Eastern Kyrgyz” and the Kazakh Hordes as “Western Kyrgyz.”
“The Eastern Kyrgyz,” he writes, “migrated to Chinese Turkestan from their former lands between the Ob and Yenisei at the beginning of the past century.
Asians now call these people Kara-Kyrgyz, meaning Black Kyrgyz, or, as previously mentioned, Buruts. The Russians have added two more names: “Wild Kyrgyz” and “Transmontane (Za-Kamennye) Kyrgyz.”
•The term “wild” was given to them because they were considered braver than the Kazakh-Kyrgyz and even more ruthless in plundering merchant caravans.
•The term “Transmontane” (Za-Kamennye) was used by Siberian residents, likely because they lived in the mountains. In Siberia, according to travelers (see: Siberian Herald, 1818, article by Spassky on the Kamenyshchiki), the phrase “in the stone” or “beyond the stone” generally referred to mountainous regions.
Because of this, yasak-paying peasants living in the mountainous areas of Tomsk Province, Biysk Uyezd, were also called “Kamenyshchiki” (mountain dwellers).
The Fearsome Reputation of the “True Kyrgyz”
The raids and plundering of the ancient or true Kyrgyz on Siberian towns and villages made their name so dreaded and hated that the Russians, instead of using it as an insult, applied it to the Cossacks.
The Cossacks, after the Kyrgyz, caused the greatest devastation to the southern regions of Siberia—both through frequent surprise attacks and due to their large numbers and complete independence from Russia.
Meanwhile, all other neighboring Tatar and Mongol tribes, living in the region, either lacked the strength or were not inclined by nature to engage in constant conflict with the Russians.
Another reason for the creation of the term “Kyrgyz-Kaisak” was the fact that this people originally called themselves Kazakhs, making it difficult to distinguish them in conversation from the new conquerors of Siberia—since Yermak, his comrades, and their descendants were also Cossacks (Kazaks).
For all these reasons, the Hordes that in our 16th and 17th-century chronicles had no other name but “Kazakh Hordes” gradually received the additional descriptor “Kyrgyz.”
•Initially, the name became “Kyrgyz-Kazak.”
•Then it evolved into “Kyrgyz-Kasak.”
•Finally, it settled as “Kyrgyz-Kaisak.”
The Correct Usage: “Kyrgyz-Kazak” Instead of “Kyrgyz-Kaisak”
Based on this, we consider it historically accurate to replace the corrupted term “Kaisak” with “Kazak.”
Thus, we should say and write “Kyrgyz-Kazak” or “Kyrgyz-Kazakh Hordes” instead of “Kyrgyz-Kaisaks” and “Kyrgyz-Kaisak Hordes.”
This way, the people retain a name in which at least the second part is their true historical identity, while the first part remains an adjective or a designation given by the Russians.
The new name (“Kyrgyz-Kaisak”) came into widespread use at the beginning of the 18th century. However, documents from 1740 and even 1760, preserved in the archives of the College of Foreign Affairs and the former Orenburg Governor’s Office, still contain the terms “Kazakh Hordes” and “Kyrgyz-Kazakh Army.”
In the book by Witsen (Noord en Oost Tartarye, published in 1705 in Amsterdam), which was compiled using reports mostly provided by Russia under the direction of Peter the Great, the present-day Kyrgyz Hordes are referred to exclusively as “Kazakh Hordes” or “Tatar Cossacks.”
What does DNA science reveal about the origins of the Kyrgyz and Kazakhs? 🧬
Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang, University of Toronto, Canada
Kyrgyz
“Haplogroup R1a1, more specifically, its subclade R1a1a1b2 (defined by mutation Z93), is the genetic marker of the Indo-European pastoralists, who migrated from modern-day Ukraine to modern-day Iran, India, the Kazakh steppes, the Tarim Basin, the Altai Mountains region, the Yenisei River region, and western Mongolia during the Bronze Age.
Naturally, R1a1, more specifically, its subclade R1a1a1b2 (R1a-Z93), occurs at high frequency among the Turkic peoples now residing in the Yenisei River and the Altai Mountains regions in Russia.
Compared to the Tuvinians, the Khakass (whose name was created by the Soviets from Xiajiasi (黠戛斯), a Chinese name for Kyrgyz, since they were regarded as descending from the Kyrgyz have noticeably higher percentages of R1a1 (35.2%) and much lower percentages of haplogroups C (1.1%) and Q (4%). However, N is also the most prevalent haplogroup (50%) of the Khakass (Gubina et al. 2013: 339; Shi et al. 2013)
As for the Altaians, the Altai-Kizhi (southern Altaians) are characterised by a high percentage of R1a1 (50%) and low to moderate percentages of C2 (20%), Q (16.7%) and N (4.2%) (Dulik et al. 2012: 234).
The major differences between the Khakass and the southern Altaians are the lower frequency of haplogroup N (in another study, haplogroup N is found at high frequency (32%) among the Altaians in general: see Gubina et al. 2013: 329, 339) and the higher frequencies of haplogroups C2 and Q among the latter.
The descent of the Kyrgyz (Kyrgyz) of the Tien Shan Mountains region (Kyrgyzstan) from the Yenisei Kyrgyz is debated among historians.
However, among the modern Turkic peoples, the former have the highest percentage of R1a1 (over 60%). Since the West Eurasian physiognomy of the Yenisei Kyrgyz recorded in the Xin Tangshu was in all likelihood a reflection of their Eurasian Indo-European marker R1a1a1b2 (R1a-Z93), one may conjecture that the Tien Shan Kyrgyz received their R1a1 marker from the Yenisei Kyrgyz. That is, the former are descended from the latter.
The other Y-chromosome haplogroups found among the Kyrgyz (Kyrgyz) are C2 (12~20%), O (0~15%) and N (0~4.5%).50 The lack of haplogroup Q among the Qirghiz (Kyrgyz) mostly distinguishes them from the Altaians.
During the Bronze Age and early Iron Age, the Yenisei River region was inhabited by Indo-Europeans. The dna study of 26 ancient human specimens from the Krasnoyarsk area dated from the middle of the second millennium bc to the fourth century ad shows that the Yenisei pastoralists mostly belonged to haplogroup R1a1 (Keyser et al. 2009: 401)
The high frequency of R1a1 among the modern-day Kyrgyz and Altaians may thus prove that they are descended from the Yenisei Kyrgyz. In addition, this may explain the reason why medieval Chinese histories depict the Kyrgyz as possessing West Eurasian physiognomy.
The Y-chromosomes of the Kök Türks have not been studied. After the collapse of the Second Türk Khaganate in 745 ce, the Kök Türks became dispersed and it is difficult to identify their modern descendants.
If they were indeed descended from the Eastern Scythians aka Saka (Suo) or related to the Kyrgyz, as the Zhoushu states (Zhoushu 50.908), the Ashina (royal Türkic dynasty, possibly related to the Turko-Jewish Khazar Khaganate, according to Peter B. Golden of Rutgers University) may have belonged to the R1a1 lineage.
Kazakhs
Haplogroup C2 (formerly known as C3) reaches its highest frequency among the Kazakhs (66~73.7% among the Kazakhs of Kazakhstan, 75.47% among the Kazakhs of Xinjiang (Zhong et al. 2010: figure 1), 78% among the Kazakhs of Karakalpakstan (Balaresque et al. 2015: supplementary figure 1) and 59.7% among the Kazakhs of the Altai Republic in Russia (Dulik et al. 2011, 2–3), whose ancestors include the Qipchaqs and other Turkic groups, and the Mongols, among others.
C2 is the major haplogroup of the Mongols, Kazakhs, and Evenks, who belong to the proposed Altaic language family (for the Evenks, see Pakendorf et al. 2007: 1017, table 5: C-M217 and its subclades C-M48 and C-M86 correspond to C2; for the Mongols and Kazakhs, see Wells et al. 2001: 10245, table 1: M130 and M48 correspond to haplogroup C2; Zerjal et al. 2002: 474: haplogroups 10 and 36 correspond to haplogroup C2).
Haplogroup C2 is also the main paternal clan among the Buryats (see Kharkov et al. 2014: 183), who are the Mongolic people”
- Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang, University of Toronto, Canada, “A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples’
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