Early farmers from across Europe directly descended from Neolithic Aegeans

2016/06/06 by Zuzana Hofmanová, Susanne Kreutzer, Garrett Hellenthal +36 · 13 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies #Paleopathology and ancient diseases #Geography #History

paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.1523951113

openalex publication_date 2016/06/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Farming and sedentism first appeared in southwestern Asia during the early Holocene and later spread to neighboring regions, including Europe, along multiple dispersal routes. Conspicuous uncertainties remain about the relative roles of migration, cultural diffusion, and admixture with local foragers in the early Neolithization of Europe. Here we present paleogenomic data for five Neolithic individuals from northern Greece and northwestern Turkey spanning the time and region of the earliest spread of farming into Europe. We use a novel approach to recalibrate raw reads and call genotypes from ancient DNA and observe striking genetic similarity both among Aegean early farmers and with those from across Europe. Our study demonstrates a direct genetic link between Mediterranean and Central European early farmers and those of Greece and Anatolia, extending the European Neolithic migratory chain all the way back to southwestern Asia.

Citations

• Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia
• Genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human from western Siberia
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• Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe
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• Y-chromosomal analysis of Greek Cypriots reveals a primarily common pre-Ottoman paternal ancestry with Turkish Cypriots
• Multi-scale ancient DNA analyses confirm the western origin of Michelsberg farmers and document probable practices of human sacrifice
• Survival of Late Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherer Ancestry in the Iberian Peninsula
• A genetic probe into the ancient and medieval history of Southern Europe and West Asia
• Runes from Lány (Czech Republic) - The oldest inscription among Slavs. A new standard for multidisciplinary analysis of runic bones
• The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia
• West Asian sources of the Eurasian component in Ethiopians: a reassessment
• Genomes from Verteba cave suggest diversity within the Trypillians in Ukraine
• A mosaic genetic structure of the human population living in the South Baltic region during the Iron Age
• Neolithic Europe [wikipedia]