Genomic and dietary discontinuities during the Mesolithic and Neolithic in Sicily

He Yu; Marieke S van de Loosdrecht; Marcello A Mannino; Sahra Talamo; Adam B Rohrlach; Ainash Childebayeva; Vanessa Villalba-Mouco; Franziska Aron; Guido Brandt; Marta Burri; Cäcilia Freund; Rita Radzeviciute; Raphaela Stahl; Antje Wissgott; Helen Fewlass; Antonio Tagliacozzo; Marcello Piperno; Sebastiano Tusa; Carmine Collina; Vittoria Schimmenti; Rosaria Di Salvo; Kay Prüfer; Cosimo Posth; Jean-Jacques Hublin; Detlef Gronenborn; Didier Binder; Choongwon Jeong; Wolfgang Haak; Johannes Krause

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104244

Genomic and dietary discontinuities during the Mesolithic and Neolithic in Sicily

iScience. 2022 Apr 12;25(5):104244. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104244. eCollection 2022 May 20.

Authors

He Yu¹, Marieke S van de Loosdrecht¹, Marcello A Mannino^{2

3}, Sahra Talamo^{3

4}, Adam B Rohrlach^{1

5}, Ainash Childebayeva¹, Vanessa Villalba-Mouco^{1

6}, Franziska Aron¹, Guido Brandt¹, Marta Burri¹, Cäcilia Freund¹, Rita Radzeviciute¹, Raphaela Stahl¹, Antje Wissgott¹, Helen Fewlass³, Antonio Tagliacozzo⁷, Marcello Piperno⁸, Sebastiano Tusa⁹, Carmine Collina¹⁰, Vittoria Schimmenti¹¹, Rosaria Di Salvo¹², Kay Prüfer^{1

13}, Cosimo Posth^{1

14

15}, Jean-Jacques Hublin^{3

12}, Detlef Gronenborn¹⁶, Didier Binder¹⁷, Choongwon Jeong^{1

18}, Wolfgang Haak¹, Johannes Krause¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany.
² Department of Archeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark.
³ Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA), Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
⁴ Department of Chemistry G. Ciamician, Alma Mater Studiorum, Bologna University, Via Selmi 2, 40126 Bologna, Italy.
⁵ ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers, School of Mathematical Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia.
⁶ Institute of Evolutionary Biology, CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.
⁷ Service of Bioarchaeology Museo delle Civiltà, Museo Preistorico Etnografico "Luigi Pigorini", P.le G. Marconi 14, Rome, Italy.
⁸ Department of Ancient World Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Via Palestro 63, 00185 Rome, Italy.
⁹ Soprintendenza del Mare, Via Lungarini 9, 90133 Palermo, Italy.
¹⁰ Museo Civico Biagio Greco, Via Genova 2, 81034 Mondragone (Caserta), Italy.
¹¹ Museo Archeologico Regionale "Antonino Salinas", Via Bara all'Olivella 24, 90133 Palermo, Italy.
¹² Collège de France, 11 Place Marcellin Berthelot, 75005 Paris, France.
¹³ Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA), Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
¹⁴ Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Archaeo- and Palaeogenetics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
¹⁵ Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, University of Tübingen, Tübingen 72074, Germany.
¹⁶ Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology (Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum) Ernst-Ludwig-Platz 2, 55116 Mainz, Germany.
¹⁷ Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, CEPAM, 06300 Nice, France.
¹⁸ School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

Sicily is a key region for understanding the agricultural transition in the Mediterranean because of its central position. Here, we present genomic and stable isotopic data for 19 prehistoric Sicilians covering the Mesolithic to Bronze Age periods (10,700-4,100 yBP). We find that Early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (HGs) from Sicily are a highly drifted lineage of the Early Holocene western European HGs, whereas Late Mesolithic HGs carry ∼20% ancestry related to northern and (south) eastern European HGs, indicating substantial gene flow. Early Neolithic farmers are genetically most similar to farmers from the Balkans and Greece, with only ∼7% of ancestry from local Mesolithic HGs. The genetic discontinuities during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic match the changes in material culture and diet. Three outlying individuals dated to ∼8,000 yBP; however, suggest that hunter-gatherers interacted with incoming farmers at Grotta dell'Uzzo, resulting in a mixed economy and diet for a brief interlude at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Evolutionary biology; Paleobiology; Paleogenetics.