Millions of modern Asian men can trace their lineage to 11 powerful leaders - including Genghis Khan

Large numbers of Asian men -- potentially hundreds of millions of them -- possess the genetic markers that link them to 11 powerful, dynastic leaders, including the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan.

Genetic markers are passed down from father to son on the Y chromosome. But after a generation or two, they become very rare or even disappear altogether. In a recent study, though, researchers were able to identify genetic markers on the Y chromosome that weren't rare at all -- and they date back thousands of years.

The findings indicate that the number of Asian men who can date their lineage to the same 11 dynastic leaders is potentially quite large.

"It must be in the hundreds of millions that belong to these lineages," said Mark Jobling, the lead researcher on the project and a professor in the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics.

Researchers believe that the dynastic leaders who gave rise to millions of men in the present-day Asian population possessed an enormous amount of power, and that social status was passed down from generation to generation.

The study, published in the European Journal of Human Genetics, analyzed the Y chromosomes of 5,321 men from 127 different Asian populations covering a geographic spread from the Middle East to Korea. As expected, the majority of genetic markers carried by these men were unique.

But researchers were able to identify 11 more common markers -- some that were present as many as 71 times. Those 11 lineages accounted for an astounding 37.8 percent of all the Y chromosomes the researchers analyzed.

Two of the Y chromosome markers were associated with warlord Genghis Khan and the lesser-known Giocangga dynasties -- which supports previously published research on these lineages. Nine others, dating from between 2100 BC and 700 AD, were identified in the process.

Previous research and this new study have used a combination of information about the age of the lineages, their geographic locations, and existing oral histories to come up with educated guesses about which dynastic leaders they might be associated with.

But without conclusive genetic testing of remains from these men -- including Khan and Giocangga -- it will be impossible to prove the connection conclusively.

Still, the results show that in Asia, a particular set of factors might have brought on this phenomenon.

These dynastic leaders would have been powerful enough to have access to many women -- in some cases across wide geographical swaths -- which would have increased their chances of having children who survived.

And subsequently, those sons also would have had access to many women, who would have given birth to more sons.

That phenomenon -- and extreme reproductive success -- would need to have continued for generations for their genetic material to still be present today. It was, Jobling said, a "trans-generation amplification effect" of sorts.

"These dynasties, the individuals who founded them must have had a great deal of prestige," Jobling said, adding that they might have been akin to kings.

Researchers have found evidence of this phenomenon in a few other places -- including Medieval Ireland. And there are perhaps other, less studied populations where a similar phenomenon might have occurred.

"Certainly looking at the data on Europe as a whole, there aren't any examples that really stand out as being similar," Jobling said. "It does make you think that you need certain social conditions that happened to pop up in Asia, but also cropped up in Medieval Ireland, but hasn't popped up in other place similarly."