Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia

Abstract

Anatolia was home to some of the earliest farming communities. It has been long debated whether a migration of farming groups introduced agriculture to central Anatolia.Here, we report the first genome-wide data from a 15,000-year-old Anatolian huntergatherer and from seven Anatolian and Levantine early farmers. We find high genetic 10 continuity (~80-90%) between the hunter-gatherer and early farmers of Anatolia and detect two distinct incoming ancestries: an early Iranian/Caucasus related one and a later one linked to the ancient Levant. Finally, we observe a genetic link between southern Europe and the Near East predating 15,000 years ago that extends to central Europe during the post-last-glacial maximum period. Our results suggest a limited role of human 15 migration in the emergence of agriculture in central Anatolia.

Mobility and Social Change: Understanding the European Neolithic Period after the Archaeogenetic Revolution

“…The expansion of Neolithic settlers into all directions (westward from Anatolia, northward from Iran, southward from the southern Levant, see Feldman et al 2019) seems roughly to coincide with the decline of these late Pre-Pottery Neolithic "megasites," and the social changes that led to this decline (i.e., the strengthening of household autonomy) together with external factors, like climate fluctuations, might have been the drivers of Neolithic expansion (see above). The movement of population into Europe did not start from the center of the new Neolithic world but from its periphery, central Anatolia.…”

“…Early on this was interpreted as making the case for the migration of people from southwest Asia or Anatolia into Europe as the main driver of the continent`s Neolithization (Bramanti et al 2009;Brandt et al 2013;Haak et al 2005Haak et al , 2010Haak et al , 2015Lazaridis et al 2014). Recently, it was found that a single 15,000-year-old Epi-Palaeolithic individual from central Anatolian Pinarbaşı and five individuals from the early central Anatolian Aceramic Neolithic in Boncuklu sort into the same cluster (Feldman et al 2019). Five individuals from the central Anatolian Early Neolithic site of Tepecik-Çiftlik are found close to this cluster, indicating a local origin of this specific kind of ancestry (Kılınç et al 2016).…”

“…The central Anatolian Neolithic populations seem to have strong roots in the local hunter-gatherer populations, with some small degree of Clusters commonly used are indicated by colored shading: EAF: early Anatolian farmers; WHG: western hunter-gatherers; EHG: eastern hunter-gatherers; SHG: Scandinavian hunter-gatherers; ANE: ancient north Eurasians/Native Americans; ICHG: Iranian Neolithic and Caucasus hunter-gatherers; LN/EBA: Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in central Europe, southern Scandinavia and the Carpathian Basin; steppe ancestry was defined with reference to Yamnaya-related samples. Some individual samples connected to archaeological units discussed in the text are shown for illustrative purposes, without being a representative selection admixture with populations from the southern Levant, Iran, and the Caucasus (Feldman et al 2019). After a remarkably long period of spatial stability, largely connected to the "Pre-Pottery Neolithic" (PPN) period, the first larger expansion from central Anatolia westward into western Anatolia and southeastern Europe began around 6600 BC ( Fig.…”

Demogenomic modeling of the timing and the processes of early European farmers differentiation

“…Even though Central Anatolia has previously been proposed to have hosted admixture events 15,17 , the exact geographic location of the massive post-LGM admixture event is difficult to pinpoint, and even though we modeled a single pulse of gene flow, admixture could also have consisted in extensive gene flow over several generations and over a relatively large area. We can nevertheless envision two alternative scenarios of admixture and later migrations.…”

Prevalence of cranial trauma in Eurasian Upper Paleolithic humans

“…Human groups before and after the LGM differ markedly in their morphology in terms of body height, robusticity, and craniofacial and dental dimensions (Brennan, 1991; Brewster, Meiklejohn, et al, 2014; Brewster, Pinhasi, & Meiklejohn, 2014; Cox, Ruff, Maier, & Mathieson, 2019; Formicola & Giannecchini, 1999; Formicola & Holt, 2007; Holt, 2018; Holt et al, 2018; Holt & Formicola, 2008; Meiklejohn & Babb, 2011; Niskanen, Ruff, Holt, Sládek, & Berner, 2018; Ruff, 2002). These morphological features can result from changing levels of stress (Frayer, 1981), but may also be associated with a large‐scale population turnover during recolonization after the LGM as suggested by genetic evidence (Feldman et al, 2019; Fu et al, 2016; Posth et al, 2016).…”