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237together wit Valentina Suzukei (2006) gives a comprehensive picture of the Tuvanovertone singing tradition.• Mark van Tongeren, a Dutch scholar and performer, published a book in 2002“Overtone Singing: Physics and Metaphysics of Harmonic in East and West”, providing alook at this phenomenon both as a performer and a scholar.• In her 2002 book “Tuvan Throat-Singing” (in Russian) Tuvanethnomusicologist Zoya Kyrgyz surveyed all existing ethnographic and historic materialsconnected to overtone singing in Tuva. The biggest existing variety of the types ofovertone singing in Tuva, according to the scholar, proves the Tuvan origin of thisphenomenon.• Mongolian musician Tserendavaa holds another opinion, suggesting that it is aChandman, a region in western Mongolia that gave birth to overtone singing tradition(Levin, 2006:69).To understand the origins of the overtone-singing phenomenon, and to criticallycheck the possibility of this singing style being extremely ancient, it is very fruitful tohave a careful look at the region of distribution of overtone singing and to take intoaccount the historical context of the groups of peoples practicing overtone singing.Geography and the ethnic history of this region brings the following facts to ourattention:(1) According to the data of archaeology and physical anthropology, theregion of Central Asia underwent a major population change. Thegrowing body of information suggests that almost till the end of thefirst millennia c. e. this region was mostly populated by peoples withdifferent, mostly European (Caucasian) physical characteristics, andsupposedly, culture. Besides growing archaeological and physicalanthropological evidence, these older layer of the peoples from thisregion had been mentioned in Chinese historical records as well.(2)Starting from the 9 th century, major ethnic and population changes tookplace in Central Asia. New waves of peoples (mostly fromcontemporary China) replaced the previous populations in many partsof Central Asia. This process of a westwards movement of the EastAsian population resulted later in a series of major conquest wars ofthe great Mongol Empire, reaching well into Central Europe in the 13 thand 14 th centuries.(3) Physical anthropological studies of Central Asia by Russiananthropologists suggested that the old European substratum is stillclearly evident among the peoples of certain regions of Central Asia.More specifically, this substratum is best preserved among thepopulations of: (a) western Tuva, (b) Western Mongolia, and (c) thepeoples of the Altai-Sayan mountain ranges.