2017/05/09 by Iain Mathieson, Songül Alpaslan Roodenberg, Cosimo Posth +97 · 102 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Forensic and Genetic Research #Genetic diversity and population structure #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Cline (biology) #Geography #Prehistory #Indigenous #Steppe #Ancient DNA #Lineage (genetic) #Population #Domestication #Agriculture #Ethnology #Founder effect #Archaeology #Ecology #Demography #History #Biology #Haplotype #Genotype
paper · pdf · doi:10.1101/135616
published in bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
openalex publication_date 2017/05/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract Farming was first introduced to southeastern Europe in the mid-7 th millennium BCE – brought by migrants from Anatolia who settled in the region before spreading throughout Europe. To clarify the dynamics of the interaction between the first farmers and indigenous hunter-gatherers where they first met, we analyze genome-wide ancient DNA data from 223 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and surrounding regions between 12,000 and 500 BCE. We document previously uncharacterized genetic structure, showing a West-East cline of ancestry in hunter-gatherers, and show that some Aegean farmers had ancestry from a different lineage than the northwestern Anatolian lineage that formed the overwhelming ancestry of other European farmers. We show that the first farmers of northern and western Europe passed through southeastern Europe with limited admixture with local hunter-gatherers, but that some groups mixed extensively, with relatively sex-balanced admixture compared to the male-biased hunter-gatherer admixture that prevailed later in the North and West. Southeastern Europe continued to be a nexus between East and West after farming arrived, with intermittent genetic contact from the Steppe up to 2,000 years before the migration that replaced much of northern Europe’s population.