Genetic ancestry changes in Stone to Bronze Age transition in the East European plain

2020/07/03 by Lehti Saag, Sergey Vasilyev, Liivi Varul +15 · 60 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Arts and Humanities · #Forensic and Genetic Research #Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research #Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies #Bronze Age #Steppe #Geography #Stone Age #Period (music) #Archaeology #Genetic genealogy #Population #Bronze #Demography #Art

paper · pdf · doi:10.1101/2020.07.02.184507

published in bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)

openalex publication_date 2020/07/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/08

Abstract

Abstract Transition from the Stone to the Bronze Age in Central and Western Europe was a period of major population movements originating from the Ponto-Caspian Steppe. Here, we report new genome-wide sequence data from 28 individuals from the territory north of this source area – from the under-studied Western part of present-day Russia, including Stone Age hunter-gatherers (10,800–4,250 cal BC) and Bronze Age farmers from the Corded Ware complex called Fatyanovo Culture (2,900–2,050 cal BC). We show that Eastern hunter-gatherer ancestry was present in Northwestern Russia already from around 10,000 BC. Furthermore, we see a clear change in ancestry with the arrival of farming – the Fatyanovo Culture individuals were genetically similar to other Corded Ware cultures, carrying a mixture of Steppe and European early farmer ancestry and thus likely originating from a fast migration towards the northeast from somewhere in the vicinity of modern-day Ukraine, which is the closest area where these ancestries coexisted from around 3,000 BC.

Citations

• Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia
• Radiocarbon and Dendrochronological Dates of the Corded Ware Culture
• A Genetic Atlas of Human Admixture History
• The phylogenetic and geographic structure of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a
• Genomic structure in Europeans dating back at least 36,200 years
• The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people
• Unravelling the hidden ancestry of American admixed populations
• Developmental validation of the HIrisPlex system: DNA-based eye and hair colour prediction for forensic and anthropological usage
• Cutadapt removes adapter sequences from high-throughput sequencing reads
• A Revised Timescale for Human Evolution Based on Ancient Mitochondrial Genomes
• Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe
• Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans
• Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans
• Genetic Discontinuity Between Local Hunter-Gatherers and Central Europe’s First Farmers
• An Aboriginal Australian Genome Reveals Separate Human Dispersals into Asia
• No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews
• Worldwide Human Relationships Inferred from Genome-Wide Patterns of Variation
• Ancient DNA from the First European Farmers in 7500-Year-Old Neolithic Sites
• A global reference for human genetic variation
• The fine-scale genetic structure of the British population
• Updated comprehensive phylogenetic tree of global human mitochondrial DNA variation
• Autosomal and uniparental portraits of the native populations of Sakha (Yakutia): implications for the peopling of Northeast Eurasia
• Ancient human genome sequence of an extinct Palaeo-Eskimo
• A recent bottleneck of Y chromosome diversity coincides with a global change in culture
• IntCal13 and Marine13 Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curves 0–50,000 Years cal BP
• Genetic Heritage of the Balto-Slavic Speaking Populations: A Synthesis of Autosomal, Mitochondrial and Y-Chromosomal Data
• The Caucasus as an Asymmetric Semipermeable Barrier to Ancient Human Migrations
• PLINK: A Tool Set for Whole-Genome Association and Population-Based Linkage Analyses
• Bayesian Analysis of Radiocarbon Dates
• Genome-wide patterns of selection in 230 ancient Eurasians
• Punctuated bursts in human male demography inferred from 1,244 worldwide Y-chromosome sequences
• Early farmers from across Europe directly descended from Neolithic Aegeans
• Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East
• A reference panel of 64,976 haplotypes for genotype imputation
• Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe
• The Neolithic Transition in the Baltic Was Not Driven by Admixture with Early European Farmers
• Ancient X chromosomes reveal contrasting sex bias in Neolithic and Bronze Age Eurasian migrations
• Ancestry and demography and descendants of Iron Age nomads of the Eurasian Steppe
• Global skin colour prediction from DNA
• Extensive Farming in Estonia Started through a Sex-Biased Migration from the Steppe
• Ancient genomes show social and reproductive behavior of early Upper Paleolithic foragers
• The genetic prehistory of the Baltic Sea region
• The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia
• The HIrisPlex-S system for eye, hair and skin colour prediction from DNA: Introduction and forensic developmental validation
• 137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes
• The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia
• Genes reveal traces of common recent demographic history for most of the Uralic-speaking populations
• The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years
• Shifts in the Genetic Landscape of the Western Eurasian Steppe Associated with the Beginning and End of the Scythian Dominance
• The genomic history of southeastern Europe
• The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Turkic-Speaking Nomads across Eurasia
• A One-Penny Imputed Genome from Next-Generation Reference Panels
• Corded Ware cultural complexity uncovered using genomic and isotopic analysis from south-eastern Poland

Cited by

• Haplogroup R1a [wikipedia]