Genome flux and stasis in a five millennium transect of European prehistory
The Great Hungarian Plain was a crossroads of cultural transformations that have shaped European prehistory. Here we analyse a 5,000-year transect of human genomes, sampled from petrous bones giving consistently excellent endogenous DNA yields, from 13 Hungarian Neolithic, Copper, Bronze and Iron Ag...
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Published in | Nature communications Vol. 5; no. 1; p. 5257 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
London
Nature Publishing Group UK
21.10.2014
Nature Publishing Group Nature Pub. Group |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The Great Hungarian Plain was a crossroads of cultural transformations that have shaped European prehistory. Here we analyse a 5,000-year transect of human genomes, sampled from petrous bones giving consistently excellent endogenous DNA yields, from 13 Hungarian Neolithic, Copper, Bronze and Iron Age burials including two to high (~22 × ) and seven to ~1 × coverage, to investigate the impact of these on Europe’s genetic landscape. These data suggest genomic shifts with the advent of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, with interleaved periods of genome stability. The earliest Neolithic context genome shows a European hunter-gatherer genetic signature and a restricted ancestral population size, suggesting direct contact between cultures after the arrival of the first farmers into Europe. The latest, Iron Age, sample reveals an eastern genomic influence concordant with introduced Steppe burial rites. We observe transition towards lighter pigmentation and surprisingly, no Neolithic presence of lactase persistence.
Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing techniques have enabled the analysis of ancient human genomes. Here the authors sequence ancient human genomes that span a period of 5,000 years, to understand the ancestral influence on Europe's genetic landscape. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 These authors contributed equally to this work |
ISSN: | 2041-1723 2041-1723 |
DOI: | 10.1038/ncomms6257 |