Aeon32/Wikimedia CommonsThe mausoleum in Kazakhstan that purportedly holds the remains of Genghis Khans eldest son, Jochi.In the early 2000s, scientists discovered a unique Y chromosome lineage that they believed could be traced back to Genghis Khan. If this proved true, it would mean that roughly 0.5 percent of the modern worlds male population roughly one in 200 men is descended from the famous Mongol conqueror.Now, a team of researchers has analyzed the DNA of four individuals from a mausoleum in Kazakhstan thats said to belong to Genghis Khans eldest son, Jochi. What they found suggests that the famous conqueror may not have such an extensive lineage after all.The Descendants Of Genghis KhanGenghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire in 1206 after defeating a series of other chieftains on the Mongol steppe. His territory soon became the largest contiguous land empire in world history, stretching from eastern Europe to the Sea of Japan and from southern Siberia to the northern reaches of the Indian subcontinent.But Genghis wasnt just the father of the Mongol Empire he also had dozens or even hundreds of children with his many wives and concubines. Jochi, his eldest son, fathered at least 16 kids of his own, so its clear that Genghis Khan had many descendants but how many?Public DomainGenghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire who was once said to have more than 16 million living descendants.In 2003, a study identified a Y chromosome lineage called C3* that originated in Mongolia about 1,000 years ago. This haplogroup is still widely found in males living in Central Asia, representing roughly eight percent of the male population in the region and 0.5 percent worldwide.Because the Y chromosome is passed from father to son, people with this C3* cluster share common ancestry and the scientists from the 2003 study posited that Genghis Khan was that ancestor.The problem is that nobody knows where Genghis was buried. There are no samples of his DNA, so its impossible to test the genes of a modern human against those of the Mongol leader. However, his son Jochi is said to be entombed at a mausoleum in Kazakhstan, so researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the National Institute of Genetics in Mishima, Japan, recently teamed up to see what they could learn from these burials.Analyzing The Remains Of Jochi KhanSince no DNA from Genghis Khan exists, its impossible to tell whether any of the bodies entombed at the mausoleum in Kazakhstan are actually Jochi Khan.Nobody knows exactly what [Genghis Khans] Y DNA would look like, biological anthropologist Ayken Askapuli told Live Science. Not only from him, but his sons, his grandsons, immediate relatives none of them are known. So this is an attempt to answer that question.Public DomainGenghis Khan advising his sons from his deathbed, from The Travels of Marco Polo.Even if the tomb isnt Jochis, it did seemingly belong to elites of the Golden Horde, the western part of the Mongol Empire. So, in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Askapuli and his colleagues analyzed the remains of three men and one woman from the tomb. They determined that they all had the C3* lineage but there was a catch.The Y chromosome haplotype they have belongs to the C3* cluster that was previously hypothesized to be Genghis Khans, said Askapuli, but this one is very rare in modern populations.The C3* cluster is a large genetic family with multiple branches, so the fact that these Golden Horde elites dont share their DNA with most modern Asians suggests that not as many people are descended from Genghis Khan as previously believed.They belong to a specific sub-branch of that C3* cluster haplogroup, Askapuli explained to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Badger Herald, which implies that at the time of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire, this lineage already diversified.The only way to tell which C3* branch descended from Genghis Khan is to test the rulers DNA, but since thats not possible without his remains, scientists can only hypothesize about the true extent of his lineage. Still, this latest study seemingly disproves that the C3* Y chromosome lineage thats so common around the world today all descends solely from the prolific founder of the Mongol Empire.After reading this new study about how many descendants Genghis Khan has, go inside the death of the famous Mongol leader. Then, learn how the Mongol Empire fell.The post New Analysis Just Disproved The Claim That 1 In 200 Men Alive Today Are Descendants Of Genghis Khan appeared first on All That's Interesting.