Demogenomic modeling of the timing and the processes of early European farmers differentiation

AbstractThe precise genetic origins of the first Neolithic farming populations, as well as the processes and the timing of their differentiation, remain largely unknown. Based on demogenomic modeling of high-quality ancient genomes, we show that the early farmers of Anatolia and Europe emerged from a multiphase mixing of a Near Eastern population with a strongly bottlenecked Western hunter-gatherer population after the Last Glacial Maximum. Moreover, the population branch leading to the first farmers of Europe and Anatolia is characterized by a 2,500-year period of extreme genetic drift during its westward range expansion. Based on these findings, we derive a spatially explicit model of the…

Correction for Frantz et al., Ancient pigs reveal a near-complete genomic turnover following their introduction to Europe

Significance Archaeological evidence indicates that domestic pigs arrived in Europe, alongside farmers from the Near East ∼8,500 y ago, yet mitochondrial genomes of modern European pigs are derived from European wild boars. To address this conundrum, we obtained mitochondrial and nuclear data from modern and ancient Near Eastern and European pigs. Our analyses indicate that, aside from a coat color gene, most Near Eastern ancestry in the genomes of European domestic pigs disappeared over 3,000 y as a result of interbreeding with local wild boars. This implies that pigs were not domesticated independently in Europe, yet the first 2,500 y of human-mediated selection applied by Near Eastern Ne…

Ancient pigs reveal a near-complete genomic turnover following their introduction to Europe

International audience; Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disappeared and was replaced by haplotypes associated with European wild boars. This turnover could be accounted for by substantial gene flow from local Euro-pean wild boars, although it is also possible that European wild boars were domesticated independently without any genetic contribution from the Near East. To test these hyp…

Population genomic analysis of elongated skulls reveals extensive female-biased immigration in Early Medieval Bavaria

Significance Many modern European states trace their roots back to a period known as the Migration Period that spans from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. We have conducted the first population-level analysis of people from this era, generating genomic data from 41 graves from archaeological sites in present-day Bavaria in southern Germany mostly dating to around 500 AD. While they are predominantly of northern/central European ancestry, we also find significant evidence for a nonlocal genetic provenance that is highly enriched among resident Early Medieval women, demonstrating artificial skull deformation. We infer that the most likely origin of the majority of these women was sout…

The mixed genetic origin of the first farmers of Europe

Pig domestication and human-mediated dispersal in western Eurasia revealed through ancient DNA and geometric morphometrics.

Zooarcheological evidence suggests that pigs were domesticated in Southwest Asia ∼8,500 BC. They then spread across the Middle and Near East and westward into Europe alongside early agriculturalists. European pigs were either domesticated independently or more likely appeared so as a result of admixture between introduced pigs and European wild boar. As a result, European wild boar mtDNA lineages replaced Near Eastern/Anatolian mtDNA signatures in Europe and subsequently replaced indigenous domestic pig lineages in Anatolia. The specific details of these processes, however, remain unknown. To address questions related to early pig domestication, dispersal, and turnover in the Near East, we …