By sequencing 727 ancient individuals from the Southern Arc (Anatolia and its neighbors in Southeastern Europe and West Asia) over 10,000 years, we contextualize its Chalcolithic period and Bronze Age (about 5000 to 1000 BCE), when extensive gene flow entangled it with the Eurasian steppe. Two streams of migration transmitted Caucasus and Anatolian/Levantine ancestry northward, and the Yamnaya pastoralists, formed on the steppe, then spread southward into the Balkans and across the Caucasus into Armenia, where they left numerous patrilineal descendants. Anatolia was transformed by intra–West Asian gene flow, with negligible impact of the later Yamnaya migrations. This contrasts with all other regions where Indo-European languages were spoken, suggesting that the homeland of the Indo-Anatolian language family was in West Asia, with only secondary dispersals of non-Anatolian Indo-Europeans from the steppe.

The early modern human remains from the Peştera Muierii, Romania have been directly dated to Ϸ30,000 radiocarbon years before present (Ϸ30 ka 14 C BP) (Ϸ35 ka cal BP) (''calendrical'' age; based on CalPal 2005) and augment a small sample of securely dated, European, pre-28 ka 14 C BP (Ϸ32.5 ka cal BP) modern human remains. The Muierii fossils exhibit a suite of derived modern human features, including reduced maxillae with pronounced canine fossae, a narrow nasal aperture, small superciliary arches, an arched parietal curve, zygomatic arch above the auditory porous, laterally bulbous mastoid processes, narrow mandibular corpus, reduced anterior dentition, ventral-to-bisulcate scapular axillary border, and planoconcave tibial and fibular diaphyseal surfaces. However, these traits co-occur with contextually archaic and͞or Neandertal features, including a moderately low frontal arc, a large occipital bun, a high coronoid process and asymmetrical mandibular notch, a more medial mandibular notch crest to condylar position, and a narrow scapular glenoid fossa. As with other European early modern humans, the mosaic of modern human and archaic͞Neandertal features, relative to their potential Middle Paleolithic ancestral populations, indicates considerable Neandertal͞modern human admixture. Moreover, the narrow scapular glenoid fossa suggests habitual movements at variance with the associated projectile technology. The reproductive and scapulohumeral functional inferences emphasize the subtle natures of behavioral contrasts between Neandertals and these early modern Europeans.cranium ͉ Europe ͉ Late Pleistocene ͉ Neandertals ͉ Upper Paleolithic

Archaeological investigations in the Iron Gates reach of the Lower Danube Valley between 1964 and 1984 revealed an important concentration of Stone Age sites, which together provide the most detailed record of Mesolithic and Early Neolithic settlement from any area of southeastern Europe. Over 425 human burials were excavated from 15 sites. Of these, less than one-fifth have been directly dated. This article presents 37 new AMS dates on human bone from five sites in the Iron Gates, together with the corresponding δ 13 C and δ 15 N values. They include the first dates on human bone from two sites, Icoana and Velesnica. The results are important for the chronology of Stone Age mortuary practices in the Iron Gates and the timing of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the region.

The importance of the process of Neolithization for the genetic make-up of European populations has been hotly debated, with shifting hypotheses from a demic diffusion (DD) to a cultural diffusion (CD) model. In this regard, ancient DNA data from the Balkan Peninsula, which is an important source of information to assess the process of Neolithization in Europe, is however missing. In the present study we show genetic information on ancient populations of the South-East of Europe. We assessed mtDNA from ten sites from the current territory of Romania, spanning a time-period from the Early Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age. mtDNA data from Early Neolithic farmers of the Starčevo Criş culture in Romania (Cârcea, Gura Baciului and Negrileşti sites), confirm their genetic relationship with those of the LBK culture (Linienbandkeramik Kultur) in Central Europe, and they show little genetic continuity with modern European populations. On the other hand, populations of the Middle-Late Neolithic (Boian, Zau and Gumelniţa cultures), supposedly a second wave of Neolithic migration from Anatolia, had a much stronger effect on the genetic heritage of the European populations. In contrast, we find a smaller contribution of Late Bronze Age migrations to the genetic composition of Europeans. Based on these findings, we propose that permeation of mtDNA lineages from a second wave of Middle-Late Neolithic migration from North-West Anatolia into the Balkan Peninsula and Central Europe represent an important contribution to the genetic shift between Early and Late Neolithic populations in Europe, and consequently to the genetic make-up of modern European populations.

ABSTRACT. Stable isotope ratios of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur in human bone collagen are used routinely to aid in the reconstruction of ancient diets. Isotopic analysis of human remains from sites in the Iron Gates section of the Lower Danube Valley has led to conflicting interpretations of Mesolithic diets in this key region of southeast Europe. One view (Bonsall et al. 1997(Bonsall et al. , 2004) is that diets were based mainly on riverine resources throughout the Mesolithic. A competing hypothesis (Nehlich et al. 2010) argues that Mesolithic diets were more varied with at least one Early Mesolithic site showing an emphasis on terrestrial resources, and riverine resources only becoming dominant in the Later Mesolithic. The present article revisits this issue, discussing the stable isotope data in relation to archaeozoological and radiocarbon evidence.

We present the first ancient DNA data from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia (Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq), Cyprus, and the Northwestern Zagros, along with the first data from Neolithic Armenia. We show that these and neighboring populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and Levantine hunter-gatherers, forming a Neolithic continuum of ancestry mirroring the geography of West Asia. By analyzing Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic populations of Anatolia, we show that the former were derived from admixture between Mesopotamian-related and local Epipaleolithic-related sources, but the latter experienced additional Levantine-related gene flow, thus documenting at least two pulses of migration from the Fertile Crescent heartland to the early farmers of Anatolia.

During the process of direct radiocarbon dating of four Early Upper Paleolithic modern humans from the Romanian sites of Peştera cu Oase, Peştera Muierii and Peştera Cioclovina Uscată, carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios (δ13C and δ15N) were measured from their bone collagen. These individuals have δ13C values similar to other Late Pleistocene humans. Their δ15N values are well within the carnivore trophic level range, among the higher of the Middle Upper Paleolithic values, and significantly greater than those of preceding Middle Paleolithic and Initial Upper Paleolithic Neanderthals. These data suggest a shift towards a broader faunal dietary spectrum among these early modern humans, despite western and eastern European archeological evidence and human functional morphology indicating little change in faunal exploitation from the Middle Paleolithic to the Early Upper Paleolithic.

DNA recovery from ancient human remains has revolutionized our ability to reconstruct the genetic landscape of the past. Ancient DNA research has benefited from the identification of skeletal elements, such as the cochlear part of the osseous inner ear, that provides optimal contexts for DNA preservation; however, the rich genetic information obtained from the