Overview
R-Y27 is one of the most ancient surviving downstream branches of R-M73, representing a deep early Holocene paternal lineage with roots in the forest-steppe belt of southwestern Siberia and the western Altai region. Its formation predates the major west-east expansions of Bronze Age steppe cultures, placing it among the rare surviving pre-Andronovo R1b lineages of Inner Asia. Archaeogenetic modeling suggests that Y27 lineages were present among Mesolithic and early Neolithic hunter-gatherer groups in the Ob–Irtysh watershed. During the late Copper Age and early Bronze Age, R-Y27 likely participated in small-scale pastoralist communities, but unlike some sister lineages of R-M73, it did not undergo large founder expansions. Modern instances remain sparse but traceable among Kazakh, Khakas, Shor and isolated Turkic-speaking groups in southern Siberia, preserving one of the rare echoes of early Holocene R1b ancestry outside Europe.