Search

We present a spatiotemporal picture of human genetic diversity in Anatolia, Iran, Levant, South Caucasus, and the Aegean, a broad region that experienced the earliest Neolithic transition and the emergence of complex hierarchical societies. Combining 35 new ancient shotgun genomes with 382 ancient and 23 present-day published genomes, we found that genetic diversity within each region steadily increased through the Holocene. We further observed that the inferred sources of gene flow shifted in time. In the first half of the Holocene, Southwest Asian and the East Mediterranean populations homogenized among themselves. Starting with the Bronze Age, however, regional populations diverged from each other, most likely driven by gene flow from external sources, which we term “the expanding mobility model.” Interestingly, this increase in inter-regional divergence can be captured by outgroup-f3-based genetic distances, but not by the commonly used FST statistic, due to the sensitivity of FST, but not outgroup-f3, to within-population diversity. Finally, we report a temporal trend of increasing male bias in admixture events through the Holocene.

In northwestern Africa, lifestyle transitioned from foraging to food production around 7,400 years ago but what sparked that change remains unclear. Archaeological data support conflicting views: (1) that migrant European Neolithic farmers brought the new way of life to North Africa1,2,3 or (2) that local hunter-gatherers adopted technological innovations4,5. The latter view is also supported by archaeogenetic data6. Here we fill key chronological and archaeogenetic gaps for the Maghreb, from Epipalaeolithic to Middle Neolithic, by sequencing the genomes of nine individuals (to between 45.8- and 0.2-fold genome coverage). Notably, we trace 8,000 years of population continuity and isolation from the Upper Palaeolithic, via the Epipaleolithic, to some Maghrebi Neolithic farming groups. However, remains from the earliest Neolithic contexts showed mostly European Neolithic ancestry. We suggest that farming was introduced by European migrants and was then rapidly adopted by local groups. During the Middle Neolithic a new ancestry from the Levant appears in the Maghreb, coinciding with the arrival of pastoralism in the region, and all three ancestries blend together during the Late Neolithic. Our results show ancestry shifts in the Neolithization of northwestern Africa that probably mirrored a heterogeneous economic and cultural landscape, in a more multifaceted process than observed in other regions., Title in the list of papers of Luciana G. Simões' thesis: Neolithization of Northwestern Africa was ignited by migrants from Iberia and Levant

There are longstanding questions about the origins and ancestry of the Picts of early medieval Scotland (ca. 300–900 CE), prompted in part by exotic medieval origin myths, their enigmatic symbols and inscriptions, and the meagre textual evidence. The Picts, first mentioned in the late 3rd century CE resisted the Romans and went on to form a powerful kingdom that ruled over a large territory in northern Britain. In the 9th and 10th centuries Gaelic language, culture and identity became dominant, transforming the Pictish realm into Alba, the precursor to the medieval kingdom of Scotland. To date, no comprehensive analysis of Pictish genomes has been published, and questions about their biological relationships to other cultural groups living in Britain remain unanswered. Here we present two high-quality Pictish genomes (2.4 and 16.5X coverage) from central and northern Scotland dated from the 5th-7th century which we impute and co-analyse with >8,300 previously published ancient and modern genomes. Using allele frequency and haplotype-based approaches, we can firmly place the genomes within the Iron Age gene pool in Britain and demonstrate regional biological affinity. We also demonstrate the presence of population structure within Pictish groups, with Orcadian Picts being genetically distinct from their mainland contemporaries. When investigating Identity-By-Descent (IBD) with present-day genomes, we observe broad affinities between the mainland Pictish genomes and the present-day people living in western Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Northumbria, but less with the rest of England, the Orkney islands and eastern Scotland—where the political centres of Pictland were located. The pre-Viking Age Orcadian Picts evidence a high degree of IBD sharing across modern Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Orkney islands, demonstrating substantial genetic continuity in Orkney for the last ~2,000 years. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA diversity at the Pictish cemet

Scandinavia spanning the Iron Age to the present, based on 48 new and 249 published ancient genomes and genotypes from 16,638 modern individuals. We find regional variation in the timing and magnitude of gene flow from three sources: the eastern Baltic, the British-Irish Isles, and southern Europe. British-Irish ancestry was widespread in Scandinavia from the Viking period, whereas eastern Baltic ancestry is more localized to Gotland and central Sweden. In some regions, a drop in current levels of external ancestry suggests that ancient immigrants contributed proportionately less to the modern Scandinavian gene pool than indicated by the ancestry of genomes from the Viking and Medieval periods. Finally, we show that a north-south genetic cline that characterizes modern Scandinavians is mainly due to the differential levels of Uralic ancestry and that this cline existed in the Viking Age and possibly earlier.

The Maghreb is a key region for understanding the dynamics of cattle dispersal and admixture with local aurochs following their earliest domestication in the Fertile Crescent more than 10,000 years ago. Here, we present data on autosomal genomes and mitogenomes obtained for four archaeological specimens of Iron Age (∼2,800 cal BP–2,000 cal BP) domestic cattle from the Eastern Maghreb, i.e. Althiburos (El Kef, Tunisia). D-loop sequences were obtained for an additional eight cattle specimens from this site. Maternal lineages were assigned to the elusive R and ubiquitous African-T1 haplogroups found in two and ten Althiburos specimens, respectively. Our results can be explained by post-domestication hybridization of Althiburos cattle with local aurochs. However, we cannot rule out an independent domestication in North Africa considering the shared ancestry of Althiburos cattle with the pre-domestic Moroccan aurochs and present-day African taurine cattle.

Santiago de Compostela is, together with Rome and Jerusalem, one of the three main pilgrimage and religious centres for Catholicism. The belief that the remains of St James the Great, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, is buried there has stimulated, since their reported discovery in the 9th century AD, a significant flow of people from across the European continent and beyond. Little is known about the practical experiences of people living within the city during its rise to prominence, however. Here, for the first time, we combine multi-isotope analysis (delta C-13, delta N-15, delta O-18(ap), delta C-13(ap) and Sr-87/Sr-86) and radiocarbon dating (C-14) of human remains discovered at the crypt of the Cathedral of Santiago to directly study changes in diet and mobility during the first three centuries of Santiago's emergence as an urban centre (9th-12th centuries AD). Together with assessment of the existing archaeological data, our radiocarbon chronology broadly confirms historical tradition regarding the first occupation of the site. Isotopic analyses reveal that the foundation of the religious site attracted migrants from the wider region of the northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula, and possibly from further afield. Stable isotope analysis of collagen, together with information on tomb typology and location, indicates that the inhabitants of the city experienced increasing socioeconomic diversity as it became wealthier as the hub of a wide network of pilgrimage. Our research represents the potential of multidisciplinary analyses to reveal insights into the origins and impacts of the emergence of early pilgrimage centres on the diets and status of communities within Christian mediaeval Europe and beyond.

After over a decade of developments in field collection, laboratory methods and advances in high-throughput sequencing, contamination remains a key issue in ancient DNA research. Currently, human and microbial contaminant DNA still impose challenges on cost-effective sequencing and accurate interpretation of ancient DNA data.

We present genome-wide data from 40 individuals dating to c.16,900 to 550 years ago in northeast Asia. We describe hitherto unknown gene flow and admixture events in the region, revealing a complex population history. While populations east of Lake Baikal remained relatively stable from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age, those from Yakutia and west of Lake Baikal witnessed major population transformations, from the Late Upper Paleolithic to the Neolithic, and during the Bronze Age, respectively. We further locate the Asian ancestors of Paleo-Inuits, using direct genetic evidence. Last, we report the most northeastern ancient occurrence of the plague-related bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Our findings indicate the highly connected and dynamic nature of northeast Asia populations throughout the Holocene.

The origins and genetic affinity of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands, commonly known as Guanches, are poorly understood. Though radiocarbon dates on archaeological remains such as charcoal, seeds, and domestic animal bones suggest that people have inhabited the islands since the 5th century BCE [1–3], it remains unclear how many times, and by whom, the islands were first settled [4, 5]. Previously published ancient DNA analyses of uniparental genetic markers have shown that the Guanches carried common North African Y chromosome markers (E-M81, E-M78, and J-M267) and mitochondrial lineages such as U6b, in addition to common Eurasian haplogroups [6–8]. These results are in agreement with some linguistic, archaeological, and anthropological data indicating an origin from a North African Berber-like population [1, 4, 9]. However, to date there are no published Guanche autosomal genomes to help elucidate and directly test this hypothesis. To resolve this, we generated the first genome-wide sequence data and mitochondrial genomes from eleven archaeological Guanche individuals originating from Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Five of the individuals (directly radiocarbon dated to a time transect spanning the 7th–11th centuries CE) yielded sufficient autosomal genome coverage (0.21× to 3.93×) for population genomic analysis. Our results show that the Guanches were genetically similar over time and that they display the greatest genetic affinity to extant Northwest Africans, strongly supporting the hypothesis of a Berber-like origin. We also estimate that the Guanches have contributed 16%–31% autosomal ancestry to modern Canary Islanders, here represented by two individuals from Gran Canaria., 1000 Ancient Genomes

El presente trabajo está compuesto por cuatro artículos, tres publicados y uno inédito. En ellos se aborda, mediante el estudio del ADN antiguo (ADNa), aspectos relativos a la paleobiogeografía, la conservación , la filogeografía y las fluctuacioes en la diversidad genética a lo largo del tiempo en distintas especies amenazadas o extintas de la península ibérica ( los linces paleárticos; Lynx lynx y Lynx pardinus y el topillo de Cabrera, Microtus cabrerae)

How and when the Americas were populated remains contentious. Using ancient and modern genome-wide data, we found that the ancestors of all present-day Native Americans, including Athabascans and Amerindians, entered the Americas as a single migration wave from Siberia no earlier than 23 thousand years ago (ka) and after no more than an 8000-year isolation period in Beringia. After their arrival to the Americas, ancestral Native Americans diversified into two basal genetic branches around 13 ka, one that is now dispersed across North and South America and the other restricted to North America. Subsequent gene flow resulted in some Native Americans sharing ancestry with present-day East Asians (including Siberians) and, more distantly, Australo-Melanesians. Putative Paleoamerican relict populations, including the historical Mexican Pericúes and South American Fuego-Patagonians, are not directly related to modern Australo-Melanesians as suggested by the Paleoamerican Model.