Genomic History of Neolithic to Bronze Age Anatolia, Northern Levant, and Southern Caucasus

Eirini Skourtanioti; Yilmaz S Erdal; Marcella Frangipane; Francesca Balossi Restelli; K Aslıhan Yener; Frances Pinnock; Paolo Matthiae; Rana Özbal; Ulf-Dietrich Schoop; Farhad Guliyev; Tufan Akhundov; Bertille Lyonnet; Emily L Hammer; Selin E Nugent; Marta Burri; Gunnar U Neumann; Sandra Penske; Tara Ingman; Murat Akar; Rula Shafiq; Giulio Palumbi; Stefanie Eisenmann; Marta D'Andrea; Adam B Rohrlach; Christina Warinner; Choongwon Jeong; Philipp W Stockhammer; Wolfgang Haak; Johannes Krause

doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.044

Genomic History of Neolithic to Bronze Age Anatolia, Northern Levant, and Southern Caucasus

Cell. 2020 May 28;181(5):1158-1175.e28. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.044.

Authors

Eirini Skourtanioti¹, Yilmaz S Erdal², Marcella Frangipane³, Francesca Balossi Restelli³, K Aslıhan Yener⁴, Frances Pinnock³, Paolo Matthiae³, Rana Özbal⁵, Ulf-Dietrich Schoop⁶, Farhad Guliyev⁷, Tufan Akhundov⁷, Bertille Lyonnet⁸, Emily L Hammer⁹, Selin E Nugent¹⁰, Marta Burri¹, Gunnar U Neumann¹, Sandra Penske¹, Tara Ingman⁵, Murat Akar¹¹, Rula Shafiq¹², Giulio Palumbi¹³, Stefanie Eisenmann¹, Marta D'Andrea³, Adam B Rohrlach¹⁴, Christina Warinner¹⁵, Choongwon Jeong¹⁶, Philipp W Stockhammer¹⁷, Wolfgang Haak¹⁸, Johannes Krause¹⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany.
² Department of Anthropology, Hacettepe University, Ankara 06800, Turkey.
³ Department of Classics, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome 00185, Italy.
⁴ Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), New York University, New York, NY 10028, USA.
⁵ Department of Archaeology and History of Art, Koç University, Istanbul 34450, Turkey.
⁶ School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, UK.
⁷ Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Baku AZ1073, Azerbaijan.
⁸ PROCLAC/UMR Laboratory, French National Centre for Scientific Research, UMR 7192, Paris 75005, France.
⁹ Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
¹⁰ School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford OX2 6PE, UK.
¹¹ Department of Archaeology, Mustafa Kemal University, Alahan-Antakya, Hatay 31060, Turkey.
¹² History Department, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul 34494, Turkey.
¹³ Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, CEPAM (Cultures et Environnements. Préhistoire, Antiquité, Moyen Âge), CNRS-UMR 7264, Nice 06357, France.
¹⁴ Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany; ARC Centre of Excellence for the Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia.
¹⁵ Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany; Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Electronic address: warinner@fas.harvard.edu.
¹⁶ Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany; School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: cwjeong@snu.ac.kr.
¹⁷ Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany; Institute for Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology and Archaeology of the Roman Provinces, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich 80539, Germany. Electronic address: philipp.stockhammer@lmu.de.
¹⁸ Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany. Electronic address: haak@shh.mpg.de.
¹⁹ Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena 07745, Germany. Electronic address: krause@shh.mpg.de.

PMID: 32470401
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.044

Abstract

Here, we report genome-wide data analyses from 110 ancient Near Eastern individuals spanning the Late Neolithic to Late Bronze Age, a period characterized by intense interregional interactions for the Near East. We find that 6^th millennium BCE populations of North/Central Anatolia and the Southern Caucasus shared mixed ancestry on a genetic cline that formed during the Neolithic between Western Anatolia and regions in today's Southern Caucasus/Zagros. During the Late Chalcolithic and/or the Early Bronze Age, more than half of the Northern Levantine gene pool was replaced, while in the rest of Anatolia and the Southern Caucasus, we document genetic continuity with only transient gene flow. Additionally, we reveal a genetically distinct individual within the Late Bronze Age Northern Levant. Overall, our study uncovers multiple scales of population dynamics through time, from extensive admixture during the Neolithic period to long-distance mobility within the globalized societies of the Late Bronze Age. VIDEO ABSTRACT.

Keywords: Eastern Mediterranean; Kura-Araxes; Near East; Ubaid; Uruk; admixture; ancient DNA; archaeogenetics; genetic continuity; genome-wide data; human population history.

Publication types

Historical Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Archaeology / methods
DNA, Ancient / analysis*
DNA, Mitochondrial / genetics
Ethnicity / genetics*
Ethnicity / history
Gene Flow / genetics*
Gene Flow / physiology
Genetic Variation / genetics
Genetics, Population / methods
Genome, Human / genetics
Genomics / methods
Haplotypes
History, Ancient
Human Migration / history
Humans
Mediterranean Region
Middle East
Sequence Analysis, DNA

Substances

DNA, Ancient
DNA, Mitochondrial