Turkish People - Genetics

Genetics

Further information: Genetic history of the Turkish people and Turkification

During the late Roman Period, prior to the Turkic conquest, the population of Anatolia had reached an estimated level of over 12 million people. Furthermore, during the time of Turkic migrations, Anatolia had the lowest migrant/resident ratio. The extent to which gene flow from Central Asia has contributed to the current gene pool of the Turkish people, and the role of the 11th century invasion by Turkic peoples, has been the subject of various studies. Several studies have concluded that the historical Anatolian groups are the primary source of the present-day Turkish population. Thus, although the Turks carried out an invasion with cultural significance, including the introduction of the Turkish language and Islam, the genetic significance from Central Asia might have been slight. Today's Turkish people are more closely related with the Balkan populations than to the Central Asian populations, and a study looking into allele frequencies suggested that there was a lack of genetic relationship between the Mongols and the Turks, despite the historical relationship of their languages (The Turks and Germans were equally distant to all three Mongolian populations). In addition, another study looking into HLA genes allele distributions indicated that Anatolians did not significantly differ from other Mediterranean populations. Multiple studies suggested an elite cultural dominance-driven linguistic replacement model to explain the adoption of Turkish language by Anatolian indigenous inhabitants.