J1-M267 and one possessed R1a. Also, the three Saltovo-Mayaki samples from 8th to 9th century CE turned out to have yDNAs G, J2a-M410 and R1a-z94 respectively. A genetic study published in Nature in May 2018 examined the remains of six Alans buried in the Caucasus from ca. 100 CE to 1400 CE. The sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1 and haplogroup Q-M242. One of the Q-M242 samples found in Beslan, North Ossetia from 200 CE found 4 relatives among Chechens from the Shoanoy Teip. The samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to HV2a1, U4d3, X2f, H13a2c, H5, and W1. Archaeology Archaeological finds support the written sources. P. D. Rau (1927) first identified late Sarmatian sites with the historical Alans. Based on the archaeological material, they were one of the Iranian-speaking nomadic tribes that began to enter the Sarmatian area between the middle of the 1st and the 2nd centuries. Language The ancient language of the Alans was an Eastern Iranian dialect either identical, or at least closely related, to ancient Eastern Iranian languages. This is confirmed by comparison of the word for horse in various Indo-Iranian languages and the reconstructed Alanic word for horse: Religion Prior to their Christianisation, the Alans were Indo-Iranian polytheists, subscribing either to the poorly understood Scythian pantheon or to a polytheistic form of Zoroastrianism. Some traditions were directly inherited from the Scythians, like embodying their dominant god in elaborate rituals. In the 4th5th centuries the Alans were at least partially Christianized by Byzantine missionaries of the Arian church. In the 13th century, invading Mongol hordes pushed the eastern Alans further south into the Caucasus, where they mixed with native Caucasian groups and successively formed three territorial entities each with different developments. Around 1395, Timur's army invaded the Northern Caucasus and massacred much of the Alanian population. As time went by, Digor in the west came under Kabard and Islamic influence. It was through the Kabardians (an East Circassian tribe) that Islam was introduced into the region in the 17th century. After 1767, all of Alania came under Russian rule, which strengthened Orthodox Christianity in that region considerably. A substantial minority of today's Ossetians are followers of the traditional Ossetian religion, revived in the 1980s as Assianism (Ossetian: Uatsdin = 'true faith'). See also Roxolani, possibly a sub-set of the Alans List of ancient Iranian peoples Notes References Citations Sources Bernard S. Bachrach, A History