Indigenous peoples of Siberia

Overview

Siberia is a sparsely populated region. Historically it has been home to a variety of different linguistic groups. According to some estimates, by the beginning of the 17th century, Indigenous peoples numbered 160,000. In the 1897 census, their number was 822,000. The 2010 census recorded 1,608,000 Indigenous Siberians and the 2021 census recorded 1,635,000 Indigenous Siberians.

• * Some estimates put the population of Siberian Tatars at 200,000.
• ** Some estimates put the population of Kamasins at 21.

Ainu people

Ainu languages are spoken in Sakhalin, Hokkaido, the Kurils, and the Kamchatka Peninsula, as well as in the Amur region. Today, Ainu is nearly extinct, with the last native speakers remaining in Hokkaido and on Kamchatka.

Mongolic peoples

The Buryats number 461,389 in Russia according to the 2010 census, which makes them the second largest ethnic minority group in Siberia. They are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia. They are the northernmost major group of the Mongols.

Buryats share many customs with their Mongolian cousins, including nomadic herding and erecting huts for shelter. Today, the majority of Buryats live in and around Ulan Ude, the capital of the republic, although many live more traditionally in the countryside. Their language is called Buryat.

In Zabaykalsky Krai of Russia, in Mongolia and China, there are also the Hamnigans—a Mongolic ethno-linguistic (sub)group as Mongolized Evenki.

In Altai Republic and Altai Krai of Russia there exists a community of Altai Oirats. The government does not write them in as a distinct ethnic group and misidentify them as Altaians or Kalmyks. They mostly live in the steppe part of the Altai Republic or around Barnaul in the Altai Krai. They number about 2,000-4,500.

Paleosiberian peoples

Four small language families and isolates, not known to have any linguistic relationship to each other, compose the Paleo-Siberian languages:

Chukotko-Kamchatkan

1. The Chukotko-Kamchatkan family, sometimes known as Luoravetlan, includes Chukchi and its close relatives, Koryak, Alutor, and Kerek. Itelmen, also known as Kamchadal, is also distantly related. Chukchi, Koryak and Alutor are spoken in easternmost Siberia by communities numbering in the dozens (Alutor) to thousands (Chukchi). Kerek is now extinct, and Itelmen is now spoken by fewer than 10 people, mostly elderly, on the west coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Nivkh

2. Nivkh is spoken in the lower Amur basin and on the northern half of Sakhalin island. It has a recent modern literature and the Nivkhs have experienced a turbulent history in the last century.

Yeniseian

3. Ket is the last survivor of the Yeniseian family along the middle of the Yenisei River and its tributaries. It has recently been claimed to be related to the Na-Dene languages of North America, though this hypothesis has met with mixed reviews among historical linguists. In the past, attempts have been made to relate it to Sino-Tibetan, North Caucasian, and Burushaski.

Yukaghir

4. Yukaghir is spoken in two mutually unintelligible varieties in the lower Kolyma and Indigirka valleys. Other languages, including Chuvantsy, spoken further inland and further east, are now extinct. Yukaghir is held by some to be related to the Uralic languages.

Tungusic peoples

The Evenki live in the Evenk Autonomous Okrug of Russia.

The Udege, Ulchs, Evens, and Nanai (also known as Hezhen) are also Indigenous peoples of the Russian Far East, and are known to share genetic affinity to Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Turkic peoples

The Turkic peoples include the following ethnic groups:

• Altaians
  • Chelkans
  • Kumandins
  • Telengits
  • Teleuts
  • Tubalars
• Chulyms
• Dolgans
• Khakas
• Shors
• Siberian Tatars
  • Baraba Tatars
  • Chat Tatars
  • Eushta Tatars
  • Kalmak Tatars
  • Zabolotnie Tatars
  • Tyumen-Tura Tatars
  • Tobol Tatars
  • Kurdak-Sargat Tatars
  • Tara Tatars
• Soyots
• Tofalar
• Tuvans
  • Tozhu Tuvans
• Yakuts

Uralic peoples

Ob-Ugrians

The Khanty (obsolete: Ostyaks) and Mansi (obsolete: Voguls) live in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia. By 2013, oil and gas companies had already devastated much of the Khanty tribes' lands. In 2014 the Khanty-Mansi regional parliament continued to weaken legislation that had previously protected Khanty and Mansi communities. Tribes' permission was required before oil and gas companies could enter their land.

Samoyeds

Samoyedic peoples include:

• Northern Samoyedic peoples
  • Nenets
  • Enets
  • Nganasan
• Southern Samoyedic peoples
  • Selkup
  • Kamasins or Kamas
  • Mator or Motor (now extinct as a distinct ethnic group)
  • Koibal (now extinct as a distinct ethnic group)

Yukaghir group

Yukaghir is spoken in two mutually unintelligible varieties in the lower Kolyma and Indigirka valleys. Other languages, including Chuvantsy, spoken further inland and further east, are now extinct. Yukaghir is held by some to be related to the Uralic languages in the Uralic–Yukaghir family.

The Yukaghirs (self-designation: одул odul, деткиль detkil) are people in East Siberia, living in the basin of the Kolyma River. The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Lower Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic; the Taiga Yukaghirs in the Upper Kolyma region in the Sakha Republic and in Srednekansky District of Magadan Oblast. By the time of Russian colonization in the 17th century, the Yukaghir tribal groups (Chuvans, Khodyns, Anauls, etc.) occupied territories from the Lena River to the mouth of the Anadyr River.

The number of the Yukaghirs decreased between the 17th and 19th centuries due to epidemics, internecine wars and Tsarist colonial policy. Some of the Yukaghirs have assimilated with the Yakuts, Evens, and Russians. Currently Yukaghirs live in the Sakha Republic and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation. In the 2002 Census, their total number was 1,509 people, up from 1,112 in the 1989 Census.

Genetic relationships and links to Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The earliest Indigenous peoples of Siberia were hunter-gatherers distantly related to modern Europeans, and diverged from a shared ancestral population around 38kya before populating Siberia. In Siberia, they received geneflow from an East-Eurasian population, most closely related to the 40kya old Tianyuan man (c. 22-50%), representing a deep sister lineage of contemporary East Asian people, giving rise to a distinct Siberian lineage known as Ancient North Eurasian (ANE). By c. 32kya, populations carrying ANE-related ancestry were probably widely distributed across northeast Eurasia.

Around 36kya, an Ancient East Asian population diverged from other East Asians somewhere in Southern China and migrated northwards into Siberia, where they encountered and interacted with the Ancient North Eurasians to give rise to the Paleo-Siberians and the Ancestral Native Americans. The Ancestral Native Americans would become isolated in the Beringia region, and subsequently populate the Americas.

The last historical population movement can be associated with the Neo-Siberian expansion outgoing from Northeast Asia (15kya), and contributed ancestry to Indigenous groups throughout Siberia as well as to Native Americans, associated with the expansion of Paleo-Eskimo, and Eskimo-Aleut groups. Modern Indigenous peoples of Siberia derive varying degrees of ancestry from these three layers, although the Ancient North Eurasian like ancestry has been largely replaced.

Indigenous Siberians and other North Asians form a distinct cluster within wider Eurasian genetic diversity, with their closest relative affinity towards Indigenous peoples of the Americas and East Asians. Modern Indigenous Siberians also show some affinities with ancient Eastern European populations, such as the Yamnaya and Pitted Ware Cultures, although this affinity is more significant for western Siberians than eastern Siberians. Both western and eastern Siberians also have strong affinities with the Ust’-Ishim man. Present Siberian ancestry found across Eurasia and North America can be traced to a single gene pool from Middle Holocene Siberians that's best represented by Middle Neolithic Yakutia populations. These populations can be modeled as a mixture of Dzhylinda-1 (71%), which is a mixture of Ancient North Eurasian, Ancient Northern East Asian and Native American, and Early Neolithic West Baikal ancestries (29%), which is Ancient Northern East Asian-rich. Ancient Northern East Asian ancestry was presumably introduced from northeastern China.

Early Native Americans are thought to have crossed into the Americas through the Beringia land bridge between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago from modern day Siberia. Certain modern Indigenous Siberians are closely related to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, with whom they share a common origin.

Analysis of genetic markers has also been used to link the two groups of Indigenous peoples. These studies focused on looking at markers on the Y chromosome, which is always inherited by sons from their fathers. Haplogroup Q is a unique mutation shared among most Indigenous peoples of the Americas, less among Siberian populations. Studies have found that 93.8% of Siberia's Ket people and 66.4% of Siberia's Selkup people possess the mutation, while it is largely absent from other populations in Eastern Asia or Europe.

The principal-component analysis suggests a close genetic relatedness between some North American Amerindians (the Chipewyan [Dënesųłı̨ne] and the Cheyenne) and certain populations of central/southern Siberia (particularly the Kets, Siberian Tatars, Yakuts, Selkups, and Altaians), at the resolution of major Y-chromosome haplogroups. This pattern agrees with the distribution of mtDNA haplogroup X, which is found in North America and the Altaians of southern central Siberia, but is absent from eastern Siberia.

According to a 2025 study, Native American-related Paleosiberian ancestry in continental Siberia mixed with ancestries related to Inland East Asians (China_NEastAsia_Inland_EN) and Amur River populations (China_AmurRiver_Mesolithic 14K). This created two distinct ancestries: Cis-Baikal Late Neolithic–Bronze Age and Yakutia Late Neolithic–Bronze Age ancestries. The first was associated with the expansion of Yeniseian-speaking groups whilst the second was associated with the expansion of Uralic-speaking groups. Cis-Baikal Late Neolithic-Bronze Age ancestry is closely related to present Central Siberians from the Yenisei River Basin. Meanwhile, Yakutia Late Neolithic-Bronze Age ancestry is associated with ancient and present Bering Straits populations. It is also associated with the dispersal of haplogroup N, which is common for present Uralic speaking-groups. Populations from the Amur River region always have high affinity to Amur River-related East Asian ancestry while those on the Mongolian Plateau and Baikal area share more affinity with Inland East Asian-related ancestry. However, there is minor genetic input from North Eurasian Hunter-Gatherers, who lived about ~10–4kya and are characterized by distinct West and East Eurasian admixture, into ancient and present Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic-speaking populations from Central and Northern Eurasia, as well as pastoralists from the Late Bronze Age and Iron age such as Scythians, Sarmatians, and Xiongnu.

Another study detected a much wider distribution of Ancient Paleosiberian ancestry since the Early Holocene and is present in sites such as northern Mongolia.

Culture and customs

Customs and beliefs vary greatly among different tribes.

The Chukchi wore laminar armour of hardened leather reinforced by wood and bones.

Kutkh (also Kutkha, Kootkha, Kutq Kutcha and other variants, Russian: Кутх), is a raven spirit traditionally revered by the Chukchi and other Siberian tribal groups. He is said to be very powerful.

Toko'yoto or the "Crab" was the Chukchi god of the sea.

Nu'tenut is the chief god of the Chukchi.

The Chukchi also respect reindeer in both mortal and holy life. They have several rituals involving them.

The Supreme Deity of the Yukaghirs is called Pon, which means "Something". He is described as very powerful.

Notable people

On 17 December 2025, Daria Egereva, a representative of the Selkup people and the IIPFCC Co-Chair, was arrested in Russia shortly after returning from the UN Climate Change Conference in Belém and has been held in pre-trial detention in Russia since 18 December 2025. She has been accused of extremism and terrorism and faces a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison. The Russian human rights organization Memorial has designated Egereva as a political prisoner. The IIPFCC has called for her release.

Literature

• Rubcova, E. S.: Materials on the Language and Folklore of the Eskimoes, Vol. I, Chaplino Dialect. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moskva * Leningrad, 1954
• Menovščikov, G. A. (= Г. А. Меновщиков) (1968). "Popular Conceptions, Religious Beliefs and Rites of the Asiatic Eskimoes". In Diószegi, Vilmos (ed.). Popular beliefs and folklore tradition in Siberia. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
• Barüske, Heinz: Eskimo Märchen. Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Düsseldorf and Köln, 1969.
• Merkur, Daniel: Becoming Half Hidden / Shamanism and Initiation Among the Inuit. Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis / Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion. Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm, 1985.
• Kleivan, I. and Sonne, B.: Eskimos / Greenland and Canada. (Series: Iconography of religions, section VIII /Arctic Peoples/, fascicle 2). Institute of Religious Iconography • State University Groningen. E.J. Brill, Leiden (The Netherland), 1985. ISBN 90-04-07160-1.