Line Q1 among Chechens: shared with the Native Americans

The main line of the Americas

Line Q1 is 26,200 years old. Today Q1 is the main paternal line of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Almost all Aymara, Navajo and Maya belong to it. The line reached the Americas from Siberia, where to this day it is one of the main lines among Tuvans and Altaians. In the Caucasus Q1 is a rarity, and among the Ingush it is absent.

When the branches of Q1 in the Caucasus and the Americas diverged

The common ancestor of Chechen and Native American carriers of Q1 lived 17,700 years ago, still in Central Asia. Since then their branches have gone separate ways. One became the main line of the Americas — it is 12,500 years old. The other reached the Caucasus too.

Half of the Chechen carriers of Q1 descend from a single ancestor. He lived much closer to our time, 2,800 years ago. Today his descendants belong to teips of three tukkhums: Nokhchmakhkakhoy, Cheberloy and Sharoy. They are also found in teips outside the tukkhums. In those centuries the Koban culture flourished in the North Caucasus. It left cast ornaments, weapons and stone-cist burials. Its sites are also found in Chechnya.

At a node 2,800 years old, this ancestor's branch converges with branches from Turkmenistan, Xinjiang and Western Siberia. A man from an Alan-period burial who lived 1,400 years ago stands on the same node. Higher up the tree, 3,000 years ago, branches from Kazakhstan, Hungary and France join them.

Teips on line Q1

Four teips where Q1 predominates belong to Nokhchmakhkakhoy, while Hindoy belongs to Cheberloy.

Notable: Tsesi 11%, Dishniy 10%.

Two branches and the teips on them

From the ancestor who lived 2,800 years ago, the line splits into two branches. The first branched off at once, and Shuonoy and some of the Dishniy stand on it. The second is much younger, 1,000 years old, and nearly all the rest stand on it: Enganoy, Gordaloy, Hindoy, Eg'ashbatoy, Tsesi.

Traditions and the tree

A teptar, the teip's manuscript, is kept in the ancestral village of Enganoy. As early as the 19th century it recorded that Enganoy and Gordaloy were blood relatives. On the tree both teips stand on one branch 1,000 years old.

The Gordaloy came from Nashkha, and the teip has its own ancestral mountain, Gordaloy Lam. The name Gordaloy comes from the ancient word g'orda, meaning sword, and the teip itself is known as the sword-bearers. In the village of Gordali people remember a dynasty of armourers and hold that the last master was named G'orda. He alone knew the secret of the renowned gurda blades and took it with him. The teip also includes the Baskhoy gar, which is linked to Cheberloy. On the tree the Gordaloy and the Hindoy of Cheberloy share a branch 850 years old.

The Eg'ashbatoy have a recorded tradition: the teip's name was formed from the names of two brothers, Eg'ash and Beta, who came from the mountain society of Tsesa. Line Q1 is found among both the Eg'ashbatoy and the Tsesi, but on the tree their common ancestor is the same as that of the whole younger branch.

The teips' own branches

On this line 4 teips each have a branch of their own, where no other teip stands. The common ancestors of these branches lived within the last 750 years.

But the boundary of a branch does not always match the boundary of a teip. A man from Dishniy shares a branch 550 years old with the Eg'ashbatoy.