scholarly journals Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Haak ◽  
Iosif Lazaridis ◽  
Nick Patterson ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
Swapan Mallick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Dna Analysis ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
Early Farmers

We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost four hundred thousand polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of western and far eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary, and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000 year old Siberian6. By ~6,000-5,000 years ago, a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry had occurred throughout much of Europe, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~3/4 of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ~3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for the theory of a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.

scholarly journals Genomic and dietary transitions during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in Sicily

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke S. van de Loosdrecht ◽  
Marcello A. Mannino ◽  
Sahra Talamo ◽  
Vanessa Villalba-Mouco ◽  
Cosimo Posth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
South Eastern Europe ◽  
Early Farmers ◽  
Late Mesolithic

AbstractSouthern Italy is a key region for understanding the agricultural transition in the Mediterranean due to its central position. We present a genomic transect for 19 prehistoric Sicilians that covers the Early Mesolithic to Early Neolithic period. We find that the Early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (HGs) are a highly drifted sister lineage to Early Holocene western European HGs, whereas a quarter of the Late Mesolithic HGs ancestry is related to HGs from eastern Europe and the Near East. This indicates substantial gene flow from (south-)eastern Europe between the Early and Late Mesolithic. The Early Neolithic farmers are genetically most similar to those from the Balkan and Greece, and carry only a maximum of ∼7% ancestry from Sicilian Mesolithic HGs. Ancestry changes match changes in dietary profile and material culture, except for two individuals who may provide tentative initial evidence that HGs adopted elements of farming in Sicily.One-sentence summaryGenome-wide and isotopic data from prehistoric Sicilians reveal a pre-farming connection to (south-) eastern Europe, and tentative initial evidence that hunter-gatherers adopted some Neolithic aspects prior to near-total replacement by early farmers.

scholarly journals Neolithic genomes reveal a distinct ancient HLA allele pool and population transformation in Europe

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Immel ◽  
Christoph Rinne ◽  
John Meadows ◽  
Rodrigo Barquera ◽  
András Szolek ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Viral Infections ◽  
Human Leukocyte ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Leukocyte Antigen ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
Farming Community ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
A Genome

AbstractThe Wartberg culture (WBC, 3,500-2,800 BCE) dates to the Late Neolithic period, a time of important demographic and cultural transformations in western Europe. We perform a genome-wide analysis of 42 individuals who were interred in a WBC collective burial in Niedertiefenbach, Germany (3,300-3,200 cal. BCE). Our results highlight that the Niedertiefenbach population indeed emerged at the beginning of the WBC. This farming community was genetically heterogeneous and carried a surprisingly large hunter-gatherer ancestry component (40%). We detect considerable differences in the human leukocyte antigen gene pool between contemporary Europeans and the Niedertiefenbach individuals whose immune response was primarily geared towards defending viral infections.

scholarly journals The Genomic History Of Southeastern Europe

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Mathieson ◽  
Songül Alpaslan Roodenberg ◽  
Cosimo Posth ◽  
Anna Szécsényi-Nagy ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Structure ◽  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Southeastern Europe ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The North ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
History Of ◽  
East And West ◽  
Local Hunter

AbstractFarming was first introduced to southeastern Europe in the mid-7thmillennium BCE – brought by migrants from Anatolia who settled in the region before spreading throughout Europe. To clarify the dynamics of the interaction between the first farmers and indigenous hunter-gatherers where they first met, we analyze genome-wide ancient DNA data from 223 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and surrounding regions between 12,000 and 500 BCE. We document previously uncharacterized genetic structure, showing a West-East cline of ancestry in hunter-gatherers, and show that some Aegean farmers had ancestry from a different lineage than the northwestern Anatolian lineage that formed the overwhelming ancestry of other European farmers. We show that the first farmers of northern and western Europe passed through southeastern Europe with limited admixture with local hunter-gatherers, but that some groups mixed extensively, with relatively sex-balanced admixture compared to the male-biased hunter-gatherer admixture that prevailed later in the North and West. Southeastern Europe continued to be a nexus between East and West after farming arrived, with intermittent genetic contact from the Steppe up to 2,000 years before the migration that replaced much of northern Europe’s population.

scholarly journals The genetic prehistory of the Greater Caucasus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuan-Chao Wang ◽  
Sabine Reinhold ◽  
Alexey Kalmykov ◽  
Antje Wissgott ◽  
Guido Brandt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Human Movement ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Snp Data ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Show Evidence

AbstractArchaeogenetic studies have described the formation of Eurasian ‘steppe ancestry’ as a mixture of Eastern and Caucasus hunter-gatherers. However, it remains unclear when and where this ancestry arose and whether it was related to a horizon of cultural innovations in the 4thmillennium BCE that subsequently facilitated the advance of pastoral societies likely linked to the dispersal of Indo-European languages. To address this, we generated genome-wide SNP data from 45 prehistoric individuals along a 3000-year temporal transect in the North Caucasus. We observe a genetic separation between the groups of the Caucasus and those of the adjacent steppe. The Caucasus groups are genetically similar to contemporaneous populations south of it, suggesting that – unlike today – the Caucasus acted as a bridge rather than an insurmountable barrier to human movement. The steppe groups from Yamnaya and subsequent pastoralist cultures show evidence for previously undetected farmer-related ancestry from different contact zones, while Steppe Maykop individuals harbour additional Upper Palaeolithic Siberian and Native American related ancestry.

scholarly journals Parallel paleogenomic transects reveal complex genetic history of early European farmers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Lipson ◽  
Anna Szécsényi-Nagy ◽  
Swapan Mallick ◽  
Annamária Pósa ◽  
Balázs Stégmár ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Dynamics Of Population ◽  
History Of ◽  
Population Interactions ◽  
Almost All

Ancient DNA studies have established that European Neolithic populations were descended from Anatolian migrants who received a limited amount of admixture from resident hunter-gatherers. Many open questions remain, however, about the spatial and temporal dynamics of population interactions and admixture during the Neolithic period. Using the highest-resolution genome-wide ancient DNA data set assembled to date—a total of 177 samples, 127 newly reported here, from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Hungary (6000–2900 BCE,n= 98), Germany (5500–3000 BCE,n= 42), and Spain (5500–2200 BCE,n= 37)—we investigate the population dynamics of Neolithization across Europe. We find that genetic diversity was shaped predominantly by local processes, with varied sources and proportions of hunter-gatherer ances try among the three regions and through time. Admixture between groups with different ancestry profiles was pervasive and resulted in observable population transformation across almost all cultural transitions. Our results shed new light on the ways that gene flow reshaped European populations throughout the Neolithic period and demonstrate the potential of time-series-based sampling and modeling approaches to elucidate multiple dimensions of historical population interactions.

scholarly journals Extensive farming in Estonia started through a sex-biased migration from the Steppe

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lehti Saag ◽  
Liivi Varul ◽  
Christiana Lyn Scheib ◽  
Jesper Stenderup ◽  
Morten E. Allentoft ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Sequence Data ◽  
Animal Husbandry ◽  
Whole Genome Sequence ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
X Chromosomes ◽  
Steppe Belt ◽  
Extensive Farming ◽  
Early Farmers

AbstractFarming-based economies appear relatively late in Northeast Europe and the extent to which they involve genetic ancestry change is still poorly understood. Here we present the analyses of low coverage whole genome sequence data from five hunter-gatherers and five farmers of Estonia dated to 4,500 to 6,300 years before present. We find evidence of significant differences between the two groups in the composition of autosomal as well as mtDNA, X and Y chromosome ancestries. We find that Estonian hunter-gatherers of Comb Ceramic Culture are closest to Eastern hunter-gatherers. The Estonian first farmers of Corded Ware Culture show high similarity in their autosomes with Steppe Belt Late Neolithic/Bronze Age individuals, Caucasus hunter-gatherers and Iranian farmers while their X chromosomes are most closely related with the European Early Farmers of Anatolian descent. These findings suggest that the shift to intensive cultivation and animal husbandry in Estonia was triggered by the arrival of new people with predominantly Steppe ancestry, but whose ancestors had undergone sex-specific admixture with early farmers with Anatolian ancestry.

scholarly journals The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vagheesh M. Narasimhan ◽  
Nick Patterson ◽  
Priya Moorjani ◽  
Iosif Lazaridis ◽  
Mark Lipson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Ancient Dna ◽  
South Asians ◽  
Asian Populations ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Steppe Communities ◽  
Genome Wide Data

AbstractThe genetic formation of Central and South Asian populations has been unclear because of an absence of ancient DNA. To address this gap, we generated genome-wide data from 362 ancient individuals, including the first from eastern Iran, Turan (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), Bronze Age Kazakhstan, and South Asia. Our data reveal a complex set of genetic sources that ultimately combined to form the ancestry of South Asians today. We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE). These Steppe communities mixed genetically with peoples of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) whom they encountered in Turan (primarily descendants of earlier agriculturalists of Iran), but there is no evidence that the main BMAC population contributed genetically to later South Asians. Instead, Steppe communities integrated farther south throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, and we show that they mixed with a more southern population that we document at multiple sites as outlier individuals exhibiting a distinctive mixture of ancestry related to Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gathers. We call this group Indus Periphery because they were found at sites in cultural contact with the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and along its northern fringe, and also because they were genetically similar to post-IVC groups in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. By co-analyzing ancient DNA and genomic data from diverse present-day South Asians, we show that Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia—consistent with the idea that the Indus Periphery individuals are providing us with the first direct look at the ancestry of peoples of the IVC—and we develop a model for the formation of present-day South Asians in terms of the temporally and geographically proximate sources of Indus Periphery-related, Steppe, and local South Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. Our results show how ancestry from the Steppe genetically linked Europe and South Asia in the Bronze Age, and identifies the populations that almost certainly were responsible for spreading Indo-European languages across much of Eurasia.One Sentence SummaryGenome wide ancient DNA from 357 individuals from Central and South Asia sheds new light on the spread of Indo-European languages and parallels between the genetic history of two sub-continents, Europe and South Asia.

scholarly journals Genome-wide study of a Neolithic Wartberg grave community reveals distinct HLA variation and hunter-gatherer ancestry

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Immel ◽  
Federica Pierini ◽  
Christoph Rinne ◽  
John Meadows ◽  
Rodrigo Barquera ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Viral Infections ◽  
Human Leukocyte ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Leukocyte Antigen ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Study

AbstractThe Wartberg culture (WBC, 3500-2800 BCE) dates to the Late Neolithic period, a time of important demographic and cultural transformations in western Europe. We performed genome-wide analyses of 42 individuals who were interred in a WBC collective burial in Niedertiefenbach, Germany (3300-3200 cal. BCE). The results showed that the farming population of Niedertiefenbach carried a surprisingly large hunter-gatherer ancestry component (34–58%). This component was most likely introduced during the cultural transformation that led to the WBC. In addition, the Niedertiefenbach individuals exhibited a distinct human leukocyte antigen gene pool, possibly reflecting an immune response that was geared towards detecting viral infections.

scholarly journals Ancient DNA of pigs in Thailand: Evidence of multiple origins of Thai pigs in the late Neolithic period

ScienceAsia ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muttana Wannajuk ◽  
Pradit Sangthong ◽  
Surapol Natapintu ◽  
Passorn Wonnapinij ◽  
Supachai Vuttipongchaikij ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Neolithic Period ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Multiple Origins

scholarly journals Population Replacement in Early Neolithic Britain

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selina Brace ◽  
Yoan Diekmann ◽  
Thomas J. Booth ◽  
Zuzana Faltyskova ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Genomic Data ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Genetic Affinity ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Population Replacement ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Neolithic Cultures

The roles of migration, admixture and acculturation in the European transition to farming have been debated for over 100 years. Genome-wide ancient DNA studies indicate predominantly Anatolian ancestry for continental Neolithic farmers, but also variable admixture with local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers1–9. Neolithic cultures first appear in Britain c. 6000 years ago (kBP), a millennium after they appear in adjacent areas of northwestern continental Europe. However, the pattern and process of the British Neolithic transition remains unclear10–15. We assembled genome-wide data from six Mesolithic and 67 Neolithic individuals found in Britain, dating from 10.5-4.5 kBP, a dataset that includes 22 newly reported individuals and the first genomic data from British Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Our analyses reveals persistent genetic affinities between Mesolithic British and Western European hunter-gatherers over a period spanning Britain’s separation from continental Europe. We find overwhelming support for agriculture being introduced by incoming continental farmers, with small and geographically structured levels of additional hunter-gatherer introgression. We find genetic affinity between British and Iberian Neolithic populations indicating that British Neolithic people derived much of their ancestry from Anatolian farmers who originally followed the Mediterranean route of dispersal and likely entered Britain from northwestern mainland Europe.

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