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.

scholarly journals Ancient genome-wide DNA from France highlights the complexity of interactions between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (22) ◽  
pp. eaaz5344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maïté Rivollat ◽  
Choongwon Jeong ◽  
Stephan Schiffels ◽  
İşil Küçükkalıpçı ◽  
Marie-Hélène Pemonge ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genomic Data ◽  
Biological Interactions ◽  
Genetic Affinity ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Cultural Pattern ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Genetic Substructure ◽  
Neolithic Expansion

Starting from 12,000 years ago in the Middle East, the Neolithic lifestyle spread across Europe via separate continental and Mediterranean routes. Genomes from early European farmers have shown a clear Near Eastern/Anatolian genetic affinity with limited contribution from hunter-gatherers. However, no genomic data are available from modern-day France, where both routes converged, as evidenced by a mosaic cultural pattern. Here, we present genome-wide data from 101 individuals from 12 sites covering today’s France and Germany from the Mesolithic (N = 3) to the Neolithic (N = 98) (7000–3000 BCE). Using the genetic substructure observed in European hunter-gatherers, we characterize diverse patterns of admixture in different regions, consistent with both routes of expansion. Early western European farmers show a higher proportion of distinctly western hunter-gatherer ancestry compared to central/southeastern farmers. Our data highlight the complexity of the biological interactions during the Neolithic expansion by revealing major regional variations.

scholarly journals Towards a new history and geography of human genes informed by ancient DNA

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Pickrell ◽  
David Reich
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Population Replacement ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Geographic Locations ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Human Genes ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
History Of

Genetic information contains a record of the history of our species, and technological advances have transformed our ability to access this record. Many studies have used genome-wide data from populations today to learn about the peopling of the globe and subsequent adaptation to local conditions. Implicit in this research is the assumption that the geographic locations of people today are informative about the geographic locations of their ancestors in the distant past. However, it is now clear that long-range migration, admixture and population replacement have been the rule rather than the exception in human history. In light of this, we argue that it is time to critically re-evaluate current views of the peopling of the globe and the importance of natural selection in determining the geographic distribution of phenotypes. We specifically highlight the transformative potential of ancient DNA. By accessing the genetic make-up of populations living at archaeologically-known times and places, ancient DNA makes it possible to directly track migrations and responses to natural selection.

The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in western Scotland: a review and new evidence from Tiree

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Mithen ◽  
Anne Pirie ◽  
Sam Smith ◽  
Karen Wicks
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Population Replacement ◽  
Dietary Analysis ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Contradictory Evidence ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Existing Data

Although both the Mesolithic and Neolithic of western Scotland have been studied since the early 20th century, our knowledge of both periods remains limited, as does our understanding of the transition between them – whether this is entirely cultural in nature or involves the arrival of new Neolithic populations and the demise of the indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. The existing data provide seemingly contradictory evidence, with that from dietary analysis of skeletal remains suggesting population replacement and that from settlement and technology indicating continuity. After reviewing this evidence, this chapter briefly describes ongoing fieldwork in the Inner Hebrides that aims to gain a more complete understanding of Mesolithic settlement patterns, without which there can only be limited progress on understanding the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition.

scholarly journals The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years

Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 363 (6432) ◽  
pp. 1230-1234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iñigo Olalde ◽  
Swapan Mallick ◽  
Nick Patterson ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
Vanessa Villalba-Mouco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Y Chromosomes ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
Genetic Substructure

We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians, of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high-resolution time transect of the Iberian Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers before the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE and, by ~2000 BCE, the replacement of 40% of Iberia’s ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. We show that, in the Iron Age, Steppe ancestry had spread not only into Indo-European–speaking regions but also into non-Indo-European–speaking ones, and we reveal that present-day Basques are best described as a typical Iron Age population without the admixture events that later affected the rest of Iberia. Additionally, we document how, beginning at least in the Roman period, the ancestry of the peninsula was transformed by gene flow from North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean.

scholarly journals Paleolithic DNA from the Caucasus reveals core of West Eurasian ancestry

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iosif Lazaridis ◽  
Anna Belfer-Cohen ◽  
Swapan Mallick ◽  
Nick Patterson ◽  
Olivia Cheronet ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Population Turnover ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Relationship Of

AbstractThe earliest ancient DNA data of modern humans from Europe dates to ∼40 thousand years ago1-4, but that from the Caucasus and the Near East to only ∼14 thousand years ago5,6, from populations who lived long after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) ∼26.5-19 thousand years ago7. To address this imbalance and to better understand the relationship of Europeans and Near Easterners, we report genome-wide data from two ∼26 thousand year old individuals from Dzudzuana Cave in Georgia in the Caucasus from around the beginning of the LGM. Surprisingly, the Dzudzuana population was more closely related to early agriculturalists from western Anatolia ∼8 thousand years ago8 than to the hunter-gatherers of the Caucasus from the same region of western Georgia of ∼13-10 thousand years ago5. Most of the Dzudzuana population’s ancestry was deeply related to the post-glacial western European hunter-gatherers of the ‘Villabruna cluster’3, but it also had ancestry from a lineage that had separated from the great majority of non-African populations before they separated from each other, proving that such ‘Basal Eurasians’6,9 were present in West Eurasia twice as early as previously recorded5,6. We document major population turnover in the Near East after the time of Dzudzuana, showing that the highly differentiated Holocene populations of the region6 were formed by ‘Ancient North Eurasian’3,9,10 admixture into the Caucasus and Iran and North African11,12 admixture into the Natufians of the Levant. We finally show that the Dzudzuana population contributed the majority of the ancestry of post-Ice Age people in the Near East, North Africa, and even parts of Europe, thereby becoming the largest single contributor of ancestry of all present-day West Eurasians.

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.

What Have Genetics Ever Done for Us? The Implications of aDNA Data for Interpreting Identity in Early Neolithic Central Europe

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Hofmann
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Genetic Data ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Migration Process ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Transition Models ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Impact

This paper is concerned with the impact of ancient DNA data on our models of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in central Europe. Beginning with a brief overview of how genetic data have been received by archaeologists working in this area, it outlines the potential and remaining problems of this kind of evidence. As a migration around the beginning of the Neolithic now seems certain, new research foci are then suggested. One is renewed attention to the motivations and modalities of the migration process. The second is a fundamental change in attitude towards the capabilities of immigrant Neolithic populations to behave in novel and creative ways, abilities which in our transition models were long exclusively associated with hunter-gatherers.

scholarly journals Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Mathieson ◽  
Iosif Lazaridis ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
Swapan Mallick ◽  
Nick Patterson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Genetic Material ◽  
Indirect Evidence ◽  
Petrous Bone ◽  
Neolithic Culture ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Signatures Of Selection ◽  
Reported Data ◽  
Genome Wide Scan

The arrival of farming in Europe around 8,500 years ago necessitated adaptation to new environments, pathogens, diets, and social organizations. While indirect evidence of adaptation can be detected in patterns of genetic variation in present-day people, ancient DNA makes it possible to witness selection directly by analyzing samples from populations before, during and after adaptation events. Here we report the first genome-wide scan for selection using ancient DNA, capitalizing on the largest genome-wide dataset yet assembled: 230 West Eurasians dating to between 6500 and 1000 BCE, including 163 with newly reported data. The new samples include the first genome-wide data from the Anatolian Neolithic culture, who we show were members of the population that was the source of Europe's first farmers, and whose genetic material we extracted by focusing on the DNA-rich petrous bone. We identify genome-wide significant signatures of selection at loci associated with diet, pigmentation and immunity, and two independent episodes of selection on height.

scholarly journals Beware the Jaccard: the choice of metric is important and non-trivial in genomic colocalisation analysis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania Salvatore ◽  
Knut Dagestad Rand ◽  
Ivar Grytten ◽  
Egil Ferkingstad ◽  
Diana Domanska ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genomic Data ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Jaccard Index ◽  
Phenotypic Traits ◽  
Wide Binary ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Dataset Size ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Modelling Assumptions ◽  
Systematic Collection

AbstractBackgroundThe generation and systematic collection of genome-wide data is ever-increasing. This vast amount of data has enabled researchers to study relations between a variety of genomic and epigenomic features, including genetic variation, gene regulation, and phenotypic traits. Such relations are typically investigated by comparatively assessing genomic co-occurrence. Technically, this corresponds to assessing the similarity of pairs of genome-wide binary vectors. A variety of metrics have been proposed for this problem in other fields like ecology. However, while several of these metrics have been employed for assessing genomic co-occurrence, their appropriateness for the genomic setting has never been investigated.ResultsWe show that the choice of metric may strongly influence results and propose two alternative modelling assumptions that can be used to guide this choice. On both simulated and real genomic data, the Jaccard index is strongly affected by dataset size and should be used with caution. The Forbes coefficient (fold change) and tetrachoric correlation are less affected by dataset size, but one should be aware of increased variance for small datasets.AvailabilityAll results on simulated and real data can be inspected and reproduced athttps://hyperbrowser.uio.no/sim-measure

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.

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