A Genetic Atlas of Human Admixture History

Abstract

Modern genetic data combined with appropriate statistical methods have the potential to contribute substantially to our understanding of human history. We have developed an approach that exploits the genomic structure of admixed populations to date and characterize historical mixture events at fine scales. We used this to produce an atlas of worldwide human admixture history, constructed using genetic data alone and encompassing over 100 events occurring over the past 4,000 years. We identify events whose dates and participants suggest they describe genetic impacts of the Mongol Empire, Arab slave trade, Bantu expansion, first millennium CE migrations in eastern Europe, and European colonialism, as well as unrecorded events, revealing admixture to be an almost universal force shaping human populations.

Across language families: Genome diversity mirrors linguistic variation withinEurope

“…In particular, concerning the real exception to our congruence pattern, notice that the presence in modern Hungarians of DNA markers currently common in Northern and Central Asia has been interpreted as a consequence of westward gene flow in Medieval times (Csányi et al, 2008; Bíró et al, 2009; Hellenthal et al, 2014); this is obviously connected with historical migrations in the 9th century and with the fact that the current language is closely related to the Ugric‐speaking communities along the Ob river. However, the current low frequency of those markers is not what one would expect to observe, had a substantial demographic replacement occurred (Nadasi et al, 2007; Hellenthal et al, 2014).…”

“…However, the current low frequency of those markers is not what one would expect to observe, had a substantial demographic replacement occurred (Nadasi et al, 2007; Hellenthal et al, 2014). Careful analyses of 10th century ancient DNA in Hungary showed a predominance of European mitochondrial haplotypes in burials attributed to the lower classes, and a high incidence of Asian haplotypes in high‐status individuals of that period (Tömöry et al, 2007), which points to the Asian immigrants as representing a social élite, rather than the bulk of the population.…”

Turkish and Japanese Mycobacterium tuberculosis sublineages share a remote common ancestor

“…This admixture may have occurred at several time points, a stronger signal dating from 1,300 A.D. i.e. 700 years ago (Hellenthal et al, 2014). with T3_Ethiopia (Fig.…”

“…To our knowledge, only one common genetic pattern associated with schizophrenia has been described (Ozcan, 2006). Some indirect genetic relationship has been identified, chromosomal tracts being shared between Turkish and Mongol populations on one hand (Hellenthal et al, 2014;Yunusbayev et al, 2015) and some being shared by Japanese and Mongols on the other hand (Hellenthal et al, 2014). Common ancestry of Turkish and Japanese human subpopulations is thus possible.…”

High Frequency Haplotypes are Expected Events, not Historical Figures

“…In autosomal analysis of admixture events 2 , overwhelming genetic evidence was found for the Mongol expansion across Eurasia. This by no means shows that the Y-chromosome signal was, at least partially, driven by high status Mongols, but to this reviewer this still seems more likely than not.…”