Search results for "Prehistory"
showing 10 items of 4397 documents
The genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region
2018
Correction: Nature communications 9 (2018), art. no. 1494 doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03872-y While the series of events that shaped the transition between foraging societies and food producers are well described for Central and Southern Europe, genetic evidence from Northern Europe surrounding the Baltic Sea is still sparse. Here, we report genome-wide DNA data from 38 ancient North Europeans ranging from similar to 9500 to 2200 years before present. Our analysis provides genetic evidence that hunter-gatherers settled Scandinavia via two routes. We reveal that the first Scandinavian farmers derive their ancestry from Anatolia 1000 years earlier than previously demonstrated. The range of Mesolit…
Ancient goat genomes reveal mosaic domestication in the Fertile Crescent
2018
How humans got their goatsLittle is known regarding the location and mode of the early domestication of animals such as goats for husbandry. To investigate the history of the goat, Dalyet al.sequenced mitochondrial and nuclear sequences from ancient specimens ranging from hundreds to thousands of years in age. Multiple wild populations contributed to the origin of modern goats during the Neolithic. Over time, one mitochondrial type spread and became dominant worldwide. However, at the whole-genome level, modern goat populations are a mix of goats from different sources and provide evidence for a multilocus process of domestication in the Near East. Furthermore, the patterns described suppor…
Shell palaeoproteomics: first application of peptide mass fingerprinting for the rapid identification of mollusc shells in archaeology.
2020
10 pages; International audience; Molluscs were one of the most widely-used natural resources in the past, and their shells are abundant among archaeological findings. However, our knowledge of the variety of shells that were circulating in prehistoric times (and thus their socio-economic and cultural value) is scarce due to the difficulty of achieving taxonomic determination of fragmented and/or worked remains. This study aims to obtain molecular barcodes based on peptide mass fingerprints (PMFs) of intracrystalline proteins, in order to obtain shell identification. Palaeoproteomic applications on shells are challenging, due to low concentration of molluscan proteins and an incomplete unde…
Parallel paleogenomic transects reveal complex genetic history of early European farmers
2017
In European Neolithic populations, the arrival of farmers prompted admixture with local hunter-gatherers over many centuries, resulting in distinct signatures in each region due to a complex series of interactions. David Reich and colleagues analyse genome-wide data from 180 individuals from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods of Hungary, Germany and Spain to study the population dynamics of Neolithization in European prehistory. They examine how gene flow reshaped European populations during the Neolithic period, including pervasive admixture—the interbreeding between previously isolated populations—between groups with different ancestry profiles. In each region, they find that the arri…
Early cave art and ancient DNA record the origin of European bison
2016
The two living species of bison (European and American) are among the few terrestrial megafauna to have survived the late Pleistocene extinctions. Despite the extensive bovid fossil record in Eurasia, the evolutionary history of the European bison (or wisent, Bison bonasus) before the Holocene (<11.7 thousand years ago (kya)) remains a mystery. We use complete ancient mitochondrial genomes and genome-wide nuclear DNA surveys to reveal that the wisent is the product of hybridization between the extinct steppe bison (Bison priscus) and ancestors of modern cattle (aurochs, Bos primigenius) before 120 kya, and contains up to 10% aurochs genomic ancestry. Although undetected within the fossil re…
The maternal genetic make-up of the Iberian Peninsula between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age
2017
Agriculture first reached the Iberian Peninsula around 5700 BCE. However, little is known about the genetic structure and changes of prehistoric populations in different geographic areas of Iberia. In our study, we focus on the maternal genetic makeup of the Neolithic (~ 5500–3000 BCE), Chalcolithic (~ 3000–2200 BCE) and Early Bronze Age (~ 2200–1500 BCE). We report ancient mitochondrial DNA results of 213 individuals (151 HVS-I sequences) from the northeast, central, southeast and southwest regions and thus on the largest archaeogenetic dataset from the Peninsula to date. Similar to other parts of Europe, we observe a discontinuity between hunter-gatherers and the first farmers of the Neol…
Population genomic analysis of elongated skulls reveals extensive female-biased immigration in Early Medieval Bavaria
2018
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 genomic history of Southern Europe
2018
Farming was first introduced to southeastern Europe in the mid-7th millennium BCE - brought by migrants from Anatolia who settled in the region before spreading throughout Europe. However, the dynamics of the interaction between the first farmers and the indigenous hunter-gatherers remain poorly understood because of the near absence of ancient DNA from the region. We report new genome-wide ancient DNA data from 204 individuals-65 Paleolithic and Mesolithic, 93 Neolithic, and 46 Copper, Bronze and Iron Age-who lived in southeastern Europe and surrounding regions between about 12,000 and 500 BCE. We document that the hunter-gatherer populations of southeastern Europe, the Baltic, and the Nor…
Ancient European dog genomes reveal continuity since the Early Neolithic
2017
Europe has played a major role in dog evolution, harbouring the oldest uncontested Palaeolithic remains and having been the centre of modern dog breed creation. Here we sequence the genomes of an Early and End Neolithic dog from Germany, including a sample associated with an early European farming community. Both dogs demonstrate continuity with each other and predominantly share ancestry with modern European dogs, contradicting a previously suggested Late Neolithic population replacement. We find no genetic evidence to support the recent hypothesis proposing dual origins of dog domestication. By calibrating the mutation rate using our oldest dog, we narrow the timing of dog domestication t…
Author Correction: The genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region.
2018
While the series of events that shaped the transition between foraging societies and food producers are well described for Central and Southern Europe, genetic evidence from Northern Europe surrounding the Baltic Sea is still sparse. Here, we report genome-wide DNA data from 38 ancient North Europeans ranging from ~9500 to 2200 years before present. Our analysis provides genetic evidence that hunter-gatherers settled Scandinavia via two routes. We reveal that the first Scandinavian farmers derive their ancestry from Anatolia 1000 years earlier than previously demonstrated. The range of Mesolithic Western hunter-gatherers extended to the east of the Baltic Sea, where these populations persis…