The Genomic History Of Southeastern Europe

Abstract

Farming was first introduced to southeastern Europe in the mid-7th 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.

The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe

“…The ancient set includes 211 Beaker Complex individuals (195 newly reported, 7 with shotgun data 3 for which we generated 1240k capture data and 9 previously published 3,4 ), 68 newly reported individuals from relevant ancient populations and 298 previously published 12,18,19,21–23,50–57 individuals (Supplementary Table 1). We kept 591,642 autosomal SNPs after intersecting autosomal SNPs in the 1240k capture with the analysis set of 594,924 SNPs from Lazaridis et al 11 .…”

Possible cases of leprosy from the Late Copper Age (3780-3650 cal BC) in Hungary

“…Earlier physical anthropological papers [97–99] and archaeogenetical papers [100–102] give strong support for this migration route from the Near East to the Balkan penninsula and to the Carpathian Basin in the Early Neolithic (approx. 6000 BC).…”

Chronology and development of the Chalcolithic necropolis of Varna I

“…In order to establish a CA-based 14 C-chronology for the Varna I cemetery, we have at our disposal a total of 74 radiocarbon ages for archaeological contexts from the Copper Age (Mathieson et al 2017;Krauß et al 2014. Tab.…”