ALBERT

Description: 〈p〉The ancient Mediterranean port city of Ashkelon, identified as "Philistine" during the Iron Age, underwent a marked cultural change between the Late Bronze and the early Iron Age. It has been long debated whether this change was driven by a substantial movement of people, possibly linked to a larger migration of the so-called "Sea Peoples." Here, we report genome-wide data of 10 Bronze and Iron Age individuals from Ashkelon. We find that the early Iron Age population was genetically distinct due to a European-related admixture. This genetic signal is no longer detectible in the later Iron Age population. Our results support that a migration event occurred during the Bronze to Iron Age transition in Ashkelon but did not leave a long-lasting genetic signature.〈/p〉

Description: Although investigations of medieval plague victims have identified Yersinia pestis as the putative etiologic agent of the pandemic, methodological limitations have prevented large-scale genomic investigations to evaluate changes in the pathogen's virulence over time. We screened over 100 skeletal remains from Black Death victims of the East Smithfield mass burial site (1348–1350, London, England). Recent methods of DNA enrichment coupled with high-throughput DNA sequencing subsequently permitted reconstruction of ten full human mitochondrial genomes (16 kb each) and the full pPCP1 (9.6 kb) virulence-associated plasmid at high coverage. Comparisons of molecular damage profiles between endogenous human and Y. pestis DNA confirmed its authenticity as an ancient pathogen, thus representing the longest contiguous genomic sequence for an ancient pathogen to date. Comparison of our reconstructed plasmid against modern Y. pestis shows identity with several isolates matching the Medievalis biovar; however, our chromosomal sequences indicate the victims were infected with a Y. pestis variant that has not been previously reported. Our data reveal that the Black Death in medieval Europe was caused by a variant of Y. pestis that may no longer exist, and genetic data carried on its pPCP1 plasmid were not responsible for the purported epidemiological differences between ancient and modern forms of Y. pestis infections.

Description: We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost 400,000 polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of Western and Far Eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, approximately 8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a approximately 24,000-year-old Siberian. By approximately 6,000-5,000 years ago, farmers throughout much of Europe had more hunter-gatherer ancestry than their predecessors, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but also from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact approximately 4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced approximately 75% of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least approximately 3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Haak, Wolfgang -- Lazaridis, Iosif -- Patterson, Nick -- Rohland, Nadin -- Mallick, Swapan -- Llamas, Bastien -- Brandt, Guido -- Nordenfelt, Susanne -- Harney, Eadaoin -- Stewardson, Kristin -- Fu, Qiaomei -- Mittnik, Alissa -- Banffy, Eszter -- Economou, Christos -- Francken, Michael -- Friederich, Susanne -- Pena, Rafael Garrido -- Hallgren, Fredrik -- Khartanovich, Valery -- Khokhlov, Aleksandr -- Kunst, Michael -- Kuznetsov, Pavel -- Meller, Harald -- Mochalov, Oleg -- Moiseyev, Vayacheslav -- Nicklisch, Nicole -- Pichler, Sandra L -- Risch, Roberto -- Rojo Guerra, Manuel A -- Roth, Christina -- Szecsenyi-Nagy, Anna -- Wahl, Joachim -- Meyer, Matthias -- Krause, Johannes -- Brown, Dorcas -- Anthony, David -- Cooper, Alan -- Alt, Kurt Werner -- Reich, David -- GM100233/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG006399/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- England -- Nature. 2015 Jun 11;522(7555):207-11. doi: 10.1038/nature14317. Epub 2015 Mar 2.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences &Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia. ; 1] Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA [2] Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; 1] Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA [2] Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA [3] Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; Institute of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, D-55128 Mainz, Germany. ; 1] Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA [2] Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA [3] Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany [4] Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IVPP, CAS, Beijing 100049, China. ; Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Tubingen, D-72070 Tubingen, Germany. ; 1] Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Science, H-1014 Budapest, Hungary [2] Romisch Germanische Kommission (RGK) Frankfurt, D-60325 Frankfurt, Germany. ; Archaeological Research Laboratory, Stockholm University, 114 18 Stockholm, Sweden. ; Departments of Paleoanthropology and Archaeogenetics, Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, University of Tubingen, D-72070 Tubingen, Germany. ; State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt and State Museum of Prehistory, D-06114 Halle, Germany. ; Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueologia, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, E-28049 Madrid, Spain. ; The Cultural Heritage Foundation, Vasteras 722 12, Sweden. ; Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) RAS, St Petersburg 199034, Russia. ; Volga State Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities, Samara 443099, Russia. ; Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut, Abteilung Madrid, E-28002 Madrid, Spain. ; 1] Institute of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, D-55128 Mainz, Germany [2] State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt and State Museum of Prehistory, D-06114 Halle, Germany [3] Danube Private University, A-3500 Krems, Austria. ; Institute for Prehistory and Archaeological Science, University of Basel, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland. ; Departamento de Prehistoria, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, E-08193 Barcelona, Spain. ; Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueolgia, Universidad de Valladolid, E-47002 Valladolid, Spain. ; 1] Institute of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, D-55128 Mainz, Germany [2] Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Science, H-1014 Budapest, Hungary. ; State Office for Cultural Heritage Management Baden-Wurttemberg, Osteology, D-78467 Konstanz, Germany. ; Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany. ; 1] Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Tubingen, D-72070 Tubingen, Germany [2] Departments of Paleoanthropology and Archaeogenetics, Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, University of Tubingen, D-72070 Tubingen, Germany [3] Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, D-07745 Jena, Germany. ; Anthropology Department, Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York 13820, USA. ; 1] Institute of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, D-55128 Mainz, Germany [2] State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt and State Museum of Prehistory, D-06114 Halle, Germany [3] Danube Private University, A-3500 Krems, Austria [4] Institute for Prehistory and Archaeological Science, University of Basel, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25731166" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: We sequenced the genomes of a approximately 7,000-year-old farmer from Germany and eight approximately 8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden. We analysed these and other ancient genomes with 2,345 contemporary humans to show that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians, who contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and early European farmers, who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harboured west European hunter-gatherer related ancestry. We model these populations' deep relationships and show that early European farmers had approximately 44% ancestry from a 'basal Eurasian' population that split before the diversification of other non-African lineages.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170574/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4170574/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Lazaridis, Iosif -- Patterson, Nick -- Mittnik, Alissa -- Renaud, Gabriel -- Mallick, Swapan -- Kirsanow, Karola -- Sudmant, Peter H -- Schraiber, Joshua G -- Castellano, Sergi -- Lipson, Mark -- Berger, Bonnie -- Economou, Christos -- Bollongino, Ruth -- Fu, Qiaomei -- Bos, Kirsten I -- Nordenfelt, Susanne -- Li, Heng -- de Filippo, Cesare -- Prufer, Kay -- Sawyer, Susanna -- Posth, Cosimo -- Haak, Wolfgang -- Hallgren, Fredrik -- Fornander, Elin -- Rohland, Nadin -- Delsate, Dominique -- Francken, Michael -- Guinet, Jean-Michel -- Wahl, Joachim -- Ayodo, George -- Babiker, Hamza A -- Bailliet, Graciela -- Balanovska, Elena -- Balanovsky, Oleg -- Barrantes, Ramiro -- Bedoya, Gabriel -- Ben-Ami, Haim -- Bene, Judit -- Berrada, Fouad -- Bravi, Claudio M -- Brisighelli, Francesca -- Busby, George B J -- Cali, Francesco -- Churnosov, Mikhail -- Cole, David E C -- Corach, Daniel -- Damba, Larissa -- van Driem, George -- Dryomov, Stanislav -- Dugoujon, Jean-Michel -- Fedorova, Sardana A -- Gallego Romero, Irene -- Gubina, Marina -- Hammer, Michael -- Henn, Brenna M -- Hervig, Tor -- Hodoglugil, Ugur -- Jha, Aashish R -- Karachanak-Yankova, Sena -- Khusainova, Rita -- Khusnutdinova, Elza -- Kittles, Rick -- Kivisild, Toomas -- Klitz, William -- Kucinskas, Vaidutis -- Kushniarevich, Alena -- Laredj, Leila -- Litvinov, Sergey -- Loukidis, Theologos -- Mahley, Robert W -- Melegh, Bela -- Metspalu, Ene -- Molina, Julio -- Mountain, Joanna -- Nakkalajarvi, Klemetti -- Nesheva, Desislava -- Nyambo, Thomas -- Osipova, Ludmila -- Parik, Juri -- Platonov, Fedor -- Posukh, Olga -- Romano, Valentino -- Rothhammer, Francisco -- Rudan, Igor -- Ruizbakiev, Ruslan -- Sahakyan, Hovhannes -- Sajantila, Antti -- Salas, Antonio -- Starikovskaya, Elena B -- Tarekegn, Ayele -- Toncheva, Draga -- Turdikulova, Shahlo -- Uktveryte, Ingrida -- Utevska, Olga -- Vasquez, Rene -- Villena, Mercedes -- Voevoda, Mikhail -- Winkler, Cheryl A -- Yepiskoposyan, Levon -- Zalloua, Pierre -- Zemunik, Tatijana -- Cooper, Alan -- Capelli, Cristian -- Thomas, Mark G -- Ruiz-Linares, Andres -- Tishkoff, Sarah A -- Singh, Lalji -- Thangaraj, Kumarasamy -- Villems, Richard -- Comas, David -- Sukernik, Rem -- Metspalu, Mait -- Meyer, Matthias -- Eichler, Evan E -- Burger, Joachim -- Slatkin, Montgomery -- Paabo, Svante -- Kelso, Janet -- Reich, David -- Krause, Johannes -- 8DP1ES022577-04/DP/NCCDPHP CDC HHS/ -- GM100233/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- GM40282/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- HG002385/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- HG004120/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- HHSN26120080001E/PHS HHS/ -- P01 HG004120/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01 GM100233/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG002385/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- R01 HG006399/HG/NHGRI NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- Intramural NIH HHS/ -- England -- Nature. 2014 Sep 18;513(7518):409-13. doi: 10.1038/nature13673.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉1] Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. [2] Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Tubingen, Tubingen 72074, Germany. ; Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig 04103, Germany. ; Institute of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz D-55128, Germany. ; Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; 1] Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. [2] Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-3140, USA. ; Department of Mathematics and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. ; 1] Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [2] Department of Mathematics and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. ; Archaeological Research Laboratory, Stockholm University, 114 18, Sweden. ; 1] Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. [2] Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig 04103, Germany. [3] Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IVPP, CAS, Beijing 100049, China. ; Australian Centre for Ancient DNA and Environment Institute, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia. ; The Cultural Heritage Foundation, Vasteras 722 12, Sweden. ; 1] National Museum of Natural History, L-2160, Luxembourg. [2] National Center of Archaeological Research, National Museum of History and Art, L-2345, Luxembourg. ; Department of Paleoanthropology, Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, University of Tubingen, Tubingen D-72070, Germany. ; National Museum of Natural History, L-2160, Luxembourg. ; State Office for Cultural Heritage Management Baden-Wurttemberg, Osteology, Konstanz D-78467, Germany. ; Center for Global Health and Child Development, Kisumu 40100, Kenya. ; 1] Institutes of Evolution, Immunology and Infection Research, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK. [2] Biochemistry Department, Faculty of Medicine, Sultan Qaboos University, Alkhod, Muscat 123, Oman. ; Laboratorio de Genetica Molecular Poblacional, Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biologia Celular (IMBICE), CCT-CONICET &CICPBA, La Plata, B1906APO, Argentina. ; Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Moscow 115478, Russia. ; 1] Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Moscow 115478, Russia. [2] Vavilov Institute for General Genetics, Moscow 119991, Russia. ; Escuela de Biologia, Universidad de Costa Rica, San Jose 2060, Costa Rica. ; Institute of Biology, Research group GENMOL, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia. ; Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa 31096, Israel. ; Department of Medical Genetics and Szentagothai Research Center, University of Pecs, Pecs H-7624, Hungary. ; Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI), School of Science and Engineering, Ifrane 53000, Morocco. ; Forensic Genetics Laboratory, Institute of Legal Medicine, Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome 00168, Italy. ; 1] Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK. [2] Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK. ; Laboratorio di Genetica Molecolare, IRCCS Associazione Oasi Maria SS, Troina 94018, Italy. ; Belgorod State University, Belgorod 308015, Russia. ; Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1L5, Canada. ; Servicio de Huellas Digitales Geneticas, School of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1113 CABA, Argentina. ; Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia. ; Institute of Linguistics, University of Bern, Bern CH-3012, Switzerland. ; Laboratory of Human Molecular Genetics, Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Russian Academy of Science, Siberian Branch, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia. ; Anthropologie Moleculaire et Imagerie de Synthese, CNRS UMR 5288, Universite Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, Toulouse 31000, France. ; North-Eastern Federal University and Yakut Research Center of Complex Medical Problems, Yakutsk 677013, Russia. ; Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. ; ARL Division of Biotechnology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA. ; Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA. ; Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen, Bergen 5021, Norway. ; NextBio, Illumina, Santa Clara, California 95050, USA. ; Department of Medical Genetics, National Human Genome Center, Medical University Sofia, Sofia 1431, Bulgaria. ; 1] Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa 450054, Russia. [2] Department of Genetics and Fundamental Medicine, Bashkir State University, Ufa 450074, Russia. ; College of Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85724, USA. ; Division of Biological Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1QH, UK. ; Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-3140, USA. ; Department of Human and Medical Genetics, Vilnius University, Vilnius LT-08661, Lithuania. ; Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology group, Tartu, 51010, Estonia. ; Translational Medicine and Neurogenetics, Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire, Illkirch 67404, France. ; 1] Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics, Ufa Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa 450054, Russia. [2] Department of Genetics and Fundamental Medicine, Bashkir State University, Ufa 450074, Russia. [3] Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology group, Tartu, 51010, Estonia. ; 1] Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. [2] Amgen, 33 Kazantzaki Str, Ilioupolis 16342, Athens, Greece (T.L.); Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221 005, India (L.S.). ; Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, California 94158, USA. ; Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu, Tartu 51010, Estonia. ; Centro de Investigaciones Biomedicas de Guatemala, Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala. ; Research Department, 23andMe, Mountain View, California 94043, USA. ; Cultural Anthropology Program, University of Oulu, Oulu 90014, Finland. ; Department of Biochemistry, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Dar es Salaam 65001, Tanzania. ; Research Institute of Health, North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk 677000, Russia. ; Dipartimento di Fisica e Chimica, Universita di Palermo, Palermo 90128, Italy. ; 1] Instituto de Alta Investigacion, Universidad de Tarapaca, Arica 1000000, Chile. [2] Programa de Genetica Humana ICBM Facultad de Medicina Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8320000, Chile. [3] Centro de Investigaciones del Hombre en el Desierto, Arica 1000000, Chile. ; Centre for Population Health Sciences, The University of Edinburgh Medical School, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, UK. ; 1] Institute of Immunology, Academy of Science, Tashkent 70000, Uzbekistan. [2]. ; 1] Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology group, Tartu, 51010, Estonia. [2] Laboratory of Ethnogenomics, Institute of Molecular Biology, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Yerevan 0014, Armenia. ; 1] Department of Forensic Medicine, Hjelt Institute, University of Helsinki, Helsinki 00014, Finland. [2] Institute of Applied Genetics, Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, Texas 76107, USA. ; Unidade de Xenetica, Departamento de Anatomia Patoloxica e Ciencias Forenses, and Instituto de Ciencias Forenses, Grupo de Medicina Xenomica (GMX), Facultade de Medicina, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Galcia 15872, Spain. ; Research Fellow, Henry Stewart Group, Russell House, London WC1A 2HN, UK. ; Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry Academy of Sciences Republic of Uzbekistan, Tashkent 100125, Uzbekistan. ; Department of Genetics and Cytology, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Kharkiv 61077, Ukraine. ; 1] Instituto Boliviano de Biologia de la Altura, Universidad Mayor de San Andres, 591 2 La Paz, Bolivia. [2] UniversidadAutonoma Tomas Frias, Potosi, Bolivia. ; 1] Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia. [2] Institute of Internal Medicine, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Novosibirsk 630089, Russia. [3] Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia. ; Basic Research Laboratory, NCI, NIH, Frederick National Laboratory, Leidos Biomedical, Frederick, Maryland 21702, USA. ; Laboratory of Ethnogenomics, Institute of Molecular Biology, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Yerevan 0014, Armenia. ; 1] Lebanese American University, School of Medicine, Beirut 13-5053, Lebanon. [2] Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; Department of Medical Biology, University of Split, School of Medicine, Split 21000, Croatia. ; Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK. ; Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. ; Department of Biology and Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. ; 1] CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500 007, India. [2] Amgen, 33 Kazantzaki Str, Ilioupolis 16342, Athens, Greece (T.L.); Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221 005, India (L.S.). ; CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad 500 007, India. ; 1] Estonian Biocentre, Evolutionary Biology group, Tartu, 51010, Estonia. [2] Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Tartu, Tartu 51010, Estonia. [3] Estonian Academy of Sciences, Tallinn 10130, Estonia. ; Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF), Departament de Ciencies Experimentals i de la Salut, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08003, Spain. ; 1] Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. [2] Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA. ; 1] Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. [2] Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. [3] Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; 1] Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Tubingen, Tubingen 72074, Germany. [2] Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, University of Tubingen, 72070 Tubingen, Germany. [3] Max Planck Institut fur Geschichte und Naturwissenschaften, Jena 07745, Germany.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25230663" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Modern humans arrived in Europe ~45,000 years ago, but little is known about their genetic composition before the start of farming ~8,500 years ago. Here we analyse genome-wide data from 51 Eurasians from ~45,000-7,000 years ago. Over this time, the proportion of Neanderthal DNA decreased from 3-6% to around 2%, consistent with natural selection against Neanderthal variants in modern humans. Whereas there is no evidence of the earliest modern humans in Europe contributing to the genetic composition of present-day Europeans, all individuals between ~37,000 and ~14,000 years ago descended from a single founder population which forms part of the ancestry of present-day Europeans. An ~35,000-year-old individual from northwest Europe represents an early branch of this founder population which was then displaced across a broad region, before reappearing in southwest Europe at the height of the last Ice Age ~19,000 years ago. During the major warming period after ~14,000 years ago, a genetic component related to present-day Near Easterners became widespread in Europe. These results document how population turnover and migration have been recurring themes of European prehistory.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Fu, Qiaomei -- Posth, Cosimo -- Hajdinjak, Mateja -- Petr, Martin -- Mallick, Swapan -- Fernandes, Daniel -- Furtwangler, Anja -- Haak, Wolfgang -- Meyer, Matthias -- Mittnik, Alissa -- Nickel, Birgit -- Peltzer, Alexander -- Rohland, Nadin -- Slon, Viviane -- Talamo, Sahra -- Lazaridis, Iosif -- Lipson, Mark -- Mathieson, Iain -- Schiffels, Stephan -- Skoglund, Pontus -- Derevianko, Anatoly P -- Drozdov, Nikolai -- Slavinsky, Vyacheslav -- Tsybankov, Alexander -- Cremonesi, Renata Grifoni -- Mallegni, Francesco -- Gely, Bernard -- Vacca, Eligio -- Morales, Manuel R Gonzalez -- Straus, Lawrence G -- Neugebauer-Maresch, Christine -- Teschler-Nicola, Maria -- Constantin, Silviu -- Moldovan, Oana Teodora -- Benazzi, Stefano -- Peresani, Marco -- Coppola, Donato -- Lari, Martina -- Ricci, Stefano -- Ronchitelli, Annamaria -- Valentin, Frederique -- Thevenet, Corinne -- Wehrberger, Kurt -- Grigorescu, Dan -- Rougier, Helene -- Crevecoeur, Isabelle -- Flas, Damien -- Semal, Patrick -- Mannino, Marcello A -- Cupillard, Christophe -- Bocherens, Herve -- Conard, Nicholas J -- Harvati, Katerina -- Moiseyev, Vyacheslav -- Drucker, Dorothee G -- Svoboda, Jiri -- Richards, Michael P -- Caramelli, David -- Pinhasi, Ron -- Kelso, Janet -- Patterson, Nick -- Krause, Johannes -- Paabo, Svante -- Reich, David -- Nature. 2016 May 2. doi: 10.1038/nature17993.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IVPP, CAS, Beijing 100044, China. ; Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. ; Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Archaeo- and Palaeogenetics, University of Tubingen, 72070 Tubingen, Germany. ; Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, 07745 Jena, Germany. ; Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. ; CIAS, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal. ; Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, SA-5005 Adelaide, Australia. ; Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. ; Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch, 17 Novosibirsk, RU-630090, Russia. ; Altai State University, Barnaul, RU-656049, Russia. ; Dipartimento di Civilta e Forme del Sapere, Universita di Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy. ; Department of Biology, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy. ; Direction regionale des affaires culturelles Rhone-Alpes, 69283 Lyon, Cedex 01, France. ; Dipartimento di Biologia, Universita degli Studi di Bari 'Aldo Moro', 70125 Bari, Italy. ; Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistoricas, Universidad de Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain. ; Department of Anthropology, MSC01 1040, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-0001, USA. ; Quaternary Archaeology, Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1010 Vienna, Austria. ; Department of Anthropology, Natural History Museum Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria. ; Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria. ; "Emil Racovita" Institute of Speleology, 010986 Bucharest 12, Romania. ; "Emil Racovita" Institute of Speleology, Cluj Branch, 400006 Cluj, Romania. ; Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna, 48121 Ravenna, Italy. ; Sezione di Scienze Preistoriche e Antropologiche, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Universita di Ferrara, 44100 Ferrara, Italy. ; Universita degli Studi di Bari 'Aldo Moro', 70125 Bari, Italy. ; Museo di "Civilta preclassiche della Murgia meridionale", 72017 Ostuni, Italy. ; Dipartimento di Biologia, Universita di Firenze, 50122 Florence, Italy. ; Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, della Terra e dell'Ambiente, U.R. Preistoria e Antropologia, Universita degli Studi di Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy. ; CNRS/UMR 7041 ArScAn MAE, 92023 Nanterre, France. ; INRAP/UMR 8215 Trajectoires 21, 92023 Nanterre, France. ; Ulmer Museum, 89073 Ulm, Germany. ; University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, Department of Geology, 01041 Bucharest, Romania. ; Department of Anthropology, California State University Northridge, Northridge, California 91330-8244, USA. ; Universite de Bordeaux, CNRS, UMR 5199-PACEA, 33615 Pessac Cedex, France. ; TRACES - UMR 5608, Universite Toulouse Jean Jaures, Maison de la Recherche, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9, France. ; Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. ; Department of Archaeology, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, 8270 Hojbjerg, Denmark. ; Service Regional d'Archeologie de Franche-Comte, 25043 Besancon Cedex, France. ; Laboratoire Chronoenvironnement, UMR 6249 du CNRS, UFR des Sciences et Techniques, 25030 Besancon Cedex, France. ; Department of Geosciences, Biogeology, University of Tubingen, 72074 Tubingen, Germany. ; Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, University of Tubingen, 72072 Tubingen, Germany. ; Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tubingen, 72070 Tubingen, Germany. ; Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Paleoanthropology, University of Tubingen, 72070 Tubingen, Germany. ; Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Saint Petersburg 34, Russia. ; Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic. ; Institute of Archaeology at Brno, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, 69129 Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic. ; Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27135931" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5500 years ago, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains controversial. We generated 42 ancient-horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient- and modern-horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski’s horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4000 years ago to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age.

Description: 〈p〉Revealing and understanding the mechanisms behind social inequality in prehistoric societies is a major challenge. By combining genome wide data, isotopic evidence as well as anthropological and archaeological data, we go beyond the dominating supra-regional approaches in archaeogenetics to shed light on the complexity of social status, inheritance rules and mobility during the Bronze Age. We apply a deep micro-regional approach and analyze genome wide data of 104 human individuals deriving from farmstead-related cemeteries from the Late Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age in southern Germany. Our results reveal that individual households lasting several generations consisted of a high-status core family and unrelated low-status individuals, a social organization accompanied by patrilocality and female exogamy, and the stability of this system over 700 years.〈/p〉

Description: Human mobility has been vigorously debated as a key factor for the spread of bronze technology and profound changes in burial practices as well as material culture in central Europe at the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. However, the relevance of individual residential changes and their importance...