Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans

2013/12/31 by Iosif Lazaridis, Nick Patterson, Alissa Mittnik +140 · 25 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Forensic and Genetic Research #Genetic diversity and population structure #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #q-bio.PE

paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nature13673

arxiv created 2014/04/02 · crossref issued 2014/09/01 · crossref published 2014/09/01 · crossref published-print 2014/09/01 · openalex publication_date 2014/09/01 · crossref published-online 2014/09/17 · crossref created 2014/09/17 · arxiv updated 2015/06/18 · crossref deposited 2023/05/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/08/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

We sequenced genomes from a ∼7,000 year old early farmer from Stuttgart in Germany, an ∼8,000 year old hunter-gatherer from Luxembourg, and seven ∼8,000 year old hunter-gatherers from southern Sweden. We analyzed these data together with other ancient genomes and 2,345 contemporary humans to show that the great majority of present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: West European Hunter-Gatherers (WHG), who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; Ancient North Eurasians (ANE), who were most closely related to Upper Paleolithic Siberians and contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and Early European Farmers (EEF), who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harbored WHG-related ancestry. We model these populations' deep relationships and show that EEF had ∼44% ancestry from a "Basal Eurasian" lineage that split prior to the diversification of all other non-African lineages.

Citations

• The Nubian Complex of Dhofar, Oman: An African Middle Stone Age Industry in Southern Arabia
• Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans
• New insights into the Tyrolean Iceman's origin and phenotype as inferred by whole-genome sequencing
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• Balts [wikipedia]
• Corded Ware culture [wikipedia]
• Pitted Ware culture [wikipedia]
• Proto-Indo-Europeans [wikipedia]
• Yamnaya culture [wikipedia]