Ancient genome analyses shed light on kinship organization and mating practice of Late Neolithic society in China

Abstract

Anthropology began in the late nineteenth century with an emphasis on kinship as a key factor in human evolution. From the 1960s, archaeologists attempted increasingly sophisticated ways of reconstructing prehistoric kinship but ancient DNA analysis has transformed the field, making it possible, to directly examine kin relations from human skeletal remains. Here, we retrieved genomic data from four Late Neolithic individuals in central China associated with the Late Neolithic Longshan culture. We provide direct evidence of consanguineous mating in ancient China, revealing inbreeding among the Longshan populations. By combining ancient genomic data with anthropological and archaeological evidence, we further show that Longshan society household was built based on the extended beyond the nuclear family, coinciding with intensified social complexity during the Longshan period, perhaps showing the transformation of large communities through a new role of genetic kinship-based extended family units.

Ancient genomes reveal the origin and kinship burial patterns of human remains during the 11th to 13th centuries in northern China

“…In China, such a study was only carried out in a Late Neolithic archaeological site associated with the Longshan culture. This study revealed that the Longshan household was not organized through nuclear family but rather extended family and further provided direct evidence of consanguineous mating practices in Longshan society (Ning et al, 2021). Here, kinship analysis was used to determine the burial customs in the historical period of northern China.…”

Benchmarking kinship estimation tools for ancient genomes using pedigree simulations

“…The use of paleogenomes for inferring genetic kin relations in ancient human populations is growing at an accelerating pace. These studies have unraveled diverse types of social relations of past human societies, from the composition of households [1,2] or burial treatment of mass murder victims [3] to matrilineal [4] or patrilineal traditions studied in graves [5][6][7][8]. However, determining kinship degree using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data from low-coverage genomes is fraught with difficulties, mainly arising from data scarcity.…”

Editorial: The adaptive value of languages: non-linguistic causes of language diversity, volume II

“…Overall, researchers must be aware of the potential effects of the nature of past and recent population contact situations, and their dynamics, as well as the dynamics of the non-linguistic variables under focus. Ideally, work in genetics in these regards will also shed further light on the problems, and solutions, involved in studying language change throughout time, since genetics enables us to reconstruct detailed human genealogies and populations movements in the past (Sikora et al, 2017 ; Skoglund and Mathieson, 2018 ; Bose et al, 2021 ; Ning et al, 2021 ; Serrano et al, 2021 ; Barbieri et al, 2022 ). For instance, family pedigrees and mating practices can be confidently inferred from ancient DNA and later used to estimate the nature of social networks, which together with other factors, like population number or forms of sociopolitical organization, seem to play a key role in shaping language features, as discussed above.…”