Mitochondrial DNA Reveals the Trace of the Ancient Settlers of a Violently Devastated Late Bronze and Iron Ages Village

Abstract

La Hoya (Alava, Basque Country) was one of the most important villages of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages of the north of the Iberian Peninsula, until it was violently devastated around the 4th century and abandoned in the 3rd century B.C. Archaeological evidences suggest that descendants from La Hoya placed their new settlement in a nearby hill, which gave rise to the current village of Laguardia. In this study, we have traced the genetic imprints of the extinct inhabitants of La Hoya through the analysis of maternal lineages. In particular, we have analyzed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region of 41 human remains recovered from the archaeological site for comparison with a sample of 51 individuals from the geographically close present-day population of Laguardia, as well as 56 individuals of the general population of the province of Alava, where the archaeological site and Laguardia village are located. MtDNA haplotypes were successfully obtained in 25 out of 41 ancient samples, and 14 different haplotypes were identified. The major mtDNA subhaplogroups observed in La Hoya were H1, H3, J1 and U5, which show a distinctive frequency pattern in the autochthonous populations of the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Approximate Bayesian Computation analysis was performed to test the most likely model for the local demographic history. The results did not sustain a genealogical continuity between Laguardia and La Hoya at the haplotype level, although factors such as sampling effects, recent admixture events, and genetic bottlenecks need to be considered. Likewise, the highly similar subhaplogroup composition detected between La Hoya and Laguardia and Alava populations do not allow us to reject a maternal genetic continuity in the human groups of the area since at least the Iron Age to present times. Broader analyses, based on a larger collection of samples and genetic markers, would be required to study fine-scale population events in these human groups.

The multiple maternal legacy of the Late Iron Age group of Urville-Nacqueville (France, Normandy) documents a long-standing genetic contact zone in northwestern France

“…Interestingly, these different French regions are located, along with Britain, in the geographical area defined for the Bronze Age as the “Manche-Mer du Nord complex” (S1B Fig). These results, combined with those obtained for older groups, argue both in favour of intensive gene flow between these regions linked by maritime routes (at least since the Bronze Age period) and of regional genetic continuity between Bronze/Iron Age and extant populations, as already highlighted for Ireland [5] or Spain [9].…”

A mosaic genetic structure of the human population living in the South Baltic region during the Iron Age

“…On the basis of the above observations, one may assume that in the IA, specific genetic substructures were formed in Central Europe. Because the demographic history of fossil populations often has a local character 33 , 34 , it is worth considering the range of the observed changes. These considerations should also take into account the hypothesis on the migrations that most likely occurred between the 3 rd and 6 th century AD.…”

Make a desert and call it peace: massacre at the Iberian Iron Age village of La Hoya

“…Sited on a hilltop 1km to the south, Laguardia became an important settlement during the later Iron Age (Llanos 2002). Yet no genetic continuity has been observed at the haplotype level in the modern local population (Núñez et al 2016), despite the present-day inhabitants of Rioja Alavesa being described as descended from Iron Age populations, without the admixture events that later affected the rest of the Iberian Peninsula (Olalde et al 2019).…”