The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations

Clemente, Florian; Unterländer, Martina; Dolgova, Olga; Amorim, Carlos Eduardo G.; Coroado-Santos, Francisco; Neuenschwander, Samuel; Ganiatsou, Elissavet; Dávalos, Diana Ivette Cruz; Anchieri, Lucas; Michaud, Frédéric; Winkelbach, Laura; Blöcher, Jens; Cárdenas, Yami Ommar Arizmendi; Mota, Bárbara Sousa da; Kalliga, Eleni; Souleles, Angelos; Kontopoulos, Ioannis; Karamitrou-Mentessidi, G.; Philaniotou, Olga; Σαμψών, Αδαμάντιος; Theodorou, Dimitra; Tsipopoulou, Metaxia; Akamatis, Ioannis; Halstead, Paul; Kotsakis, Kostas; Urem-Kotsou, Dushka; Panagiotopoulos, Diamantis; Ziota, Christina; Triantaphyllou, Sevasti; Delaneau, Olivier; Jensen, Jeffrey D.; Moreno-Mayar, J. Víctor; Bürger, Joachim; Sousa, Vitor C.; Lao, Oscar; Malaspinas, Anna-Sapfo; Papageorgopoulou, Christina

doi:10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.039

Cited by 57 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 220 publications

(162 reference statements)

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“…However, there was a smaller scale input of ancestry from other areas, including steppe ancestry, which may have played a role in cultural change in the area. A recent study suggests a large input (∼50%) of steppe ancestry in northern Greece at around 4.5 ka (Clemente et al, 2021). Fernandes et al (2020) report genome wide data from Sicily and the Balearic Islands.…”

Section: A Plague Epidemic?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The 4.2 ka Event and the End of the Maltese “Temple Period”

et al. 2022

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The small size and relatively challenging environmental conditions of the semi-isolated Maltese archipelago mean that the area offers an important case study of societal change and human-environment interactions. Following an initial phase of Neolithic settlement, the “Temple Period” in Malta began ∼5.8 thousand years ago (ka), and came to a seemingly abrupt end ∼4.3 ka, and was followed by Bronze Age societies with radically different material culture. Various ideas concerning the reasons for the end of the Temple Period have been expressed. These range from climate change, to invasion, to social conflict resulting from the development of a powerful “priesthood.” Here, we explore the idea that the end of the Temple Period relates to the 4.2 ka event. The 4.2 ka event has been linked with several examples of significant societal change around the Mediterranean, such as the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, yet its character and relevance have been debated. The Maltese example offers a fascinating case study for understanding issues such as chronological uncertainty, disentangling cause and effect when several different processes are involved, and the role of abrupt environmental change in impacting human societies. Ultimately, it is suggested that the 4.2 ka event may have played a role in the end of the Temple Period, but that other factors seemingly played a large, and possibly predominant, role. As well as our chronological modelling indicating the decline of Temple Period society in the centuries before the 4.2 ka event, we highlight the possible significance of other factors such as a plague epidemic.

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Section: A Plague Epidemic?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The 4.2 ka Event and the End of the Maltese “Temple Period”

et al. 2022

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“…By contrast, after a careful comparison of archaeological, linguistic, and genetic evidence, Colin Renfrew [11,62] proposed that it was the early farmers from the Near East who introduced their language, an early form of Indo-European, into Europe, along with their new subsistence technologies and their genes. I shall not get into the details of this controversy here, although the absence of the YAM component in Bronze-Age, Indo-Europeanspeaking, populations of Greece [54] seems hard to reconcile with the view that the first Indo-European speakers entered Europe from the north in the Bronze Age (as in Ref. 51).…”

Section: The Neolithic Demic Diffusion Todaymentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Most European genomes, both ancient and contemporary, can be modeled as a combination of WHG, EAF and YAM components [51], although in specific zones the composition of the population and its history are somewhat different [52,53]. For instance, the YAM component is virtually absent in many areas of southern Europe [54]. The EAF and YAM components show two opposite clines, with the former reaching its maximum in southern Europe (90% in Sardinia) and its minimum in the Baltic area (10% in Estonia).…”

Section: The Neolithic Demic Diffusion Todaymentioning

confidence: 99%

Neolithic demic diffusion

Barbujani

2021

Hum Popul Genet Genom

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In 1978, Paolo Menozzi, Alberto Piazza, and Luca Cavalli-Sforza paved the ground for a new multidisciplinary approach to the study of human prehistory, interpreting genetic evidence in the light of archaeological information. By producing synthetic maps of allele frequencies and summarizing them by principal component analysis (PCA), they identified an association between patterns in genetic diversity across Europe and in the Neolithic archaeological record showing the earliest documented dates of farming societies. Based on this observation, they proposed a model of demic diffusion from the Near East. They argued that the observed patterns were the result of population growth due to increased food availability in early farming communities, westward dispersal of early farmers, and relative isolation between dispersing farmers and local hunter-gatherers. These results played a major role in our understanding of the Neolithic transition, but were also criticized on methodological grounds. For instance, it has become increasingly clear that the interpretation of PCA plots is less straightforward than originally thought, and correlations should be corroborated by explicit comparison of alternative demographic models. Despite these valid criticisms, genetic and genomic studies, including those involving ancient DNA, have largely confirmed the crucial role of the Neolithic transition as a process of demographic change in European prehistory, with some qualifications. Today, there is still much to be learned about the details of that complex history, but many researchers regard the European population structure as largely reflecting the genetic consequences of three major migrations: from Africa in Upper Paleolithic times, from the Near East at the beginning of the Neolithic, and from the eastern steppes in the Bronze Age. This deep structure has not been erased, despite many additional processes involving historical migrations, isolation (i.e., drift) and local gene flow, and has been recognized thanks to the pioneering work of Menozzi, Piazza and Cavalli-Sforza. Based on “Menozzi P, Piazza A, Cavalli-Sforza LL Synthetic maps of human gene frequencies in Europeans. Science 1978;201:786-792.”

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“…Nevertheless, the level of imputation bias can be empirically estimated by downsampling high-coverage aDNA libraries and testing imputed genotypes against direct observations (e.g., Margaryan et al, 2020 ). Where a suitable reference panel exists, recently developed methods for imputation from low-coverage sequencing data ( Davies et al, 2021 ; Rubinacci et al, 2021 ) show great promise for ancient DNA studies (e.g., Clemente et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Limitations and Caveats Specific To Ancient Dnamentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative Human Paleogenetics: What can Ancient DNA Tell us About Complex Trait Evolution?

et al. 2021

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Genetic association data from national biobanks and large-scale association studies have provided new prospects for understanding the genetic evolution of complex traits and diseases in humans. In turn, genomes from ancient human archaeological remains are now easier than ever to obtain, and provide a direct window into changes in frequencies of trait-associated alleles in the past. This has generated a new wave of studies aiming to analyse the genetic component of traits in historic and prehistoric times using ancient DNA, and to determine whether any such traits were subject to natural selection. In humans, however, issues about the portability and robustness of complex trait inference across different populations are particularly concerning when predictions are extended to individuals that died thousands of years ago, and for which little, if any, phenotypic validation is possible. In this review, we discuss the advantages of incorporating ancient genomes into studies of trait-associated variants, the need for models that can better accommodate ancient genomes into quantitative genetic frameworks, and the existing limits to inferences about complex trait evolution, particularly with respect to past populations.

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The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations

Cited by 57 publications

References 220 publications

The 4.2 ka Event and the End of the Maltese “Temple Period”

The 4.2 ka Event and the End of the Maltese “Temple Period”

Neolithic demic diffusion

Quantitative Human Paleogenetics: What can Ancient DNA Tell us About Complex Trait Evolution?

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