Overview
Haplogroup R-Y36 is an early downstream branch of R-M73 with roots in the northern Inner Asian forest steppe. Forming during a period of post glacial demographic stabilization, it reflects the expansion of specialized hunter fisher groups into the Yenisei and Ob tributary systems. The Y36 lineage likely corresponds to communities that adapted to diverse ecological niches such as riparian forest strips, marshland hunting grounds and upland seasonal camps. The downstream phylogenetic structure of Y36 indicates early divergence into regionally restricted subbranches, consistent with archaeological evidence of long term territorial segmentation among small Holocene forager groups in the region. Many of these groups maintained cultural continuity for millennia, with distinct woodworking traditions, microlithic assemblages and fishing toolkits paralleling the genetic stability implied by the survival of Y36. In the present day, R-Y36 survives in small frequencies in southwestern Siberia and occasionally among groups in northern Mongolia. Its rarity but persistence signals that Y36 lineages remained relatively isolated through the Bronze Age when steppe pastoralist expansions fundamentally transformed the demographic landscape of Inner Asia. Y36 therefore acts as a genetic residue of pre Bronze Age population structures in the Siberian forest belt.