1. Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia
- Author
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Valeri Khartanovich, George McGlynn, György Pálfi, Ashot Margaryan, Paweł Dąbrowski, Morten Rasmussen, Thomas Sicheritz-Pontén, N. I. Shishlina, Rasmus Nielsen, Radosław Jarysz, Viktória Kiss, Vajk Szeverényi, Simon Rasmussen, Alexander V. Ebel, Inga Merkyte, Karin Margarita Frei, Synaru V. Trifanova, Thomas Higham, Tomasz Gralak, Jesper Stenderup, Aivar Kriiska, Søren Brunak, Martin Sikora, Paul R. Duffy, Vladislav S. Zhitenev, Niels Lynnerup, Morten E. Allentoft, T. Douglas Price, Torbjörn Ahlström, Irena Lasak, Gusztáv Tóth, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Justyna Baron, Ruzan Mkrtchyan, Lehti Saag, Dalia Pokutta, Levon Yepiskoposyan, Magdolna Vicze, Łukasz Pospieszny, Peter de Barros Damgaard, Karl-Göran Sjögren, Jan Kolář, Václav Smrčka, Tamás Hajdu, Philippe Della Casa, Gisela Grupe, Eske Willerslev, Andrey Gromov, Mikhail V. Sablin, Lise Harvig, Alexandr Khokhlov, Mait Metspalu, Andrey Epimakhov, Algimantas Merkevicius, David Chivall, László Paja, Ludovic Orlando, Vasilii I. Soenov, Vyacheslav Moiseyev, Mirosław Furmanek, Liivi Varul, Kristian Kristiansen, Lasse Vinner, Cristina Longhi, Stanisław Gronkiewicz, and Hannes Schroeder
- Subjects
Archaeogenetics ,Asia ,Human Migration ,Light skin ,Population ,Population genetics ,Skin Pigmentation ,Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide ,White People ,Population genomics ,Lactose Intolerance ,Asian People ,Gene Frequency ,Bronze Age ,Cultural Evolution ,Humans ,education ,History, Ancient ,Language ,education.field_of_study ,Multidisciplinary ,Human migration ,business.industry ,Fossils ,Genome, Human ,Phenotypic trait ,DNA ,Genomics ,Europe ,Genetics, Population ,Archaeology ,Evolutionary biology ,business - Abstract
© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000-1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. We show that the Bronze Age was a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacements, responsible for shaping major parts of present-day demographic structure in both Europe and Asia. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesized spread of Indo-European languages during the Early Bronze Age. We also demonstrate that light skin pigmentation in Europeans was already present at high frequency in the Bronze Age, but not lactose tolerance, indicating a more recent onset of positive selection on lactose tolerance than previously thought.
- Published
- 2015
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