Genetic continuity, isolation, and gene flow in Stone Age Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The genomic landscape of Stone Age Europe was shaped by multiple migratory waves and population replacements, but different regions do not all show the same patterns. To refine our understanding of the population dynamics before and after the dawn of the Neolithic, we generated and analyzed genomic sequence data from human remains of 56 individuals from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Eneolithic across Central and Eastern Europe. We found that Mesolithic European populations formed a geographically widespread isolation-by-distance zone ranging from Central Europe to Siberia, which was already established 10 000 years ago. We also found contrasting patterns of population continuity during the Neolithic transition: people around the lower Dnipro Valley region, Ukraine, showed continuity over 4 000 years, from the Mesolithic to the end of Neolithic, in contrast to almost all other parts of Europe where population turnover drove this cultural change, including vast areas of Central Europe and around the Danube River.

Dietary14C reservoir effects and the chronology of prehistoric burials at Sakhtysh, central European Russia

“…Otherwise we have to consider Zvejnieki, Latvia, 920 km west of Sakhtysh, where in the corresponding period there appears to have been a wide range of individual diets along a gradient from mainly terrestrial to mainly based on local fish [15]. Human δ 13 C and δ 15 N values at Neolithic HGF cemeteries beside the Dnipro Rapids, Ukraine, 1000 km south of Sakhtysh, demonstrate more consistently fish‐based diets than in earlier or later periods, although accurate dating of individual burials remains problematic [29‐32]. By the 4 th millennium BC, however, this region had a farming or pastoral economy.…”

Long-distance exchanges along the Black Sea coast in the Eneolithic and the steppe genetic ancestry problem

“…The connection between Suvorove-Giurgiuleşti and VKG can be seen at the genetic level. A recent archaeogenetic study suggested that the genetic ancestry of a burial from the Decea Mureşului necropolis was derived from the gene pool shared by the Anatolian Neolithic farmers and their European Neolithic descendants in central Europe and the Balkans (Mattila et al, 2022). Maternal genetic (mtDNA) lineage of the Decea individual belonged to the K haplogroup (Rotea et al, 2014), one of the major mtDNA haplogroups of Anatolian Neolithic farmers and their European agrarian descendants (Nikitin, 2019).…”

Interactions between Trypillian farmers and North Pontic forager-pastoralists in Eneolithic central Ukraine

“…Carriers of the U4b subclade were identified in Mesolithic and Neolithic fishers and foragers from Ukraine, the Iron Gates area of the Danube, and the Baltic coast (Mathieson et al 2018). The U4 mtDNA clade was present in the Middle Dnipro Valley from the beginning of the Holocene and persisted in the North Pontic steppe through at least the late Eneolithic (Nikitin et al 2017a;Mathieson et al 2018;Allentoft et al 2022;Mattila et al 2022). Carriers of the U4b mtDNA lineage have not been identified in Trypillian remains studied to date.…”

“…S1. 1, Deriivka I, III; 2, Deriivka II; 3, Mykil's'ke; 4, ;5,Oleksandria;6,Igren 8;7,Molyukhiv Bugor;8,12,Mayaki;9,13,Pischanka;10,11,17,Vinogradne;14,Pidlisivka/Porohy;15,Shakhta Stepna;16,Sugokleya;18,19,Prydnistryanske;20,Durankukak;21,Smyadovo;22,Varna;23,Verteba Cave.…”