Angela
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This is the ASHG conference (October) abstract of a new paper on ancient dna from the Balkan Neolithic from the Reich group. Again, we will be in for some surprises.
Genome-wide ancient DNA from Europe’s first encounter of farmers and hunter-gatherers. Mathieson et al
https://ep70.eventpilot.us/web/page.php?page=IntHtml&project=ASHG16&id=160122024
"Abstract:
The area of southeastern Europe known as the Balkans has always been a crossroads between Europe and Asia: a conduit for people, culture and language. Beginning around 6,500 BCE, the Balkans was the first place in Europe to become transformed by farming, brought by a new wave of migrants from Anatolia. From this staging point, farming and people spread to all corners of Europe. However, the dynamics of the interaction between farmers and indigenous European hunter-gatherers in the first place that they encountered each other remains poorly understood because of the near complete absence of genetic data from prehistoric specimens from this region.
We generated new genome-wide ancient DNA data from 65 farmers from the Balkans and adjacent regions dating as far back as 6,400 BCE. We document how the dynamics of admixture between the regions first farmers and its indigenous hunter-gatherers was complex, with evidence of local admixture from hunter-gatherers related to those from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The population admixture was patchy across both space and time, varying in magnitude between 0% and 30% for different early Balkan farming populations. The hunter-gatherer admixture in the early farmers of the Balkans is not closely related to the hunter-gatherer admixture that is predominant in present-day Europeans. This suggests that the waves of farmers that contributed most of the migrants to northern and western Europe were not ones that mixed substantially with local Balkan hunter-gatherers.
We also analyze the data to generate new insights about natural selection. The first farmers of the Balkans were in the initial stages of adaptation to environments that were dramatically different from those that their ancestors had encountered. We show that many of the adaptations related to diet and immunity that later become common in Europe were already present in early Balkan farmer populations, but not at high frequency. Thus, the adaptation of the first European farmers to their local environment was driven to a substantial extent by pre-existing variantion.
So, these hunter-gatherers were related to EHG and SHG? I wonder what yDna they carried?
Why wouldn't most Europeans have ancestry from this admixture event? Did the main EEF group just move on into central and northern Europe? Did the admixed group die out? Or is it that the very first wave of farmers wasn't very successful and it's a later wave(s) from which Europeans are descended?
They're not saying no ancestry, so it wasn't a wipe out, but our understanding of this process was obviously too simple.
Genome-wide ancient DNA from Europe’s first encounter of farmers and hunter-gatherers. Mathieson et al
https://ep70.eventpilot.us/web/page.php?page=IntHtml&project=ASHG16&id=160122024
"Abstract:
The area of southeastern Europe known as the Balkans has always been a crossroads between Europe and Asia: a conduit for people, culture and language. Beginning around 6,500 BCE, the Balkans was the first place in Europe to become transformed by farming, brought by a new wave of migrants from Anatolia. From this staging point, farming and people spread to all corners of Europe. However, the dynamics of the interaction between farmers and indigenous European hunter-gatherers in the first place that they encountered each other remains poorly understood because of the near complete absence of genetic data from prehistoric specimens from this region.
We generated new genome-wide ancient DNA data from 65 farmers from the Balkans and adjacent regions dating as far back as 6,400 BCE. We document how the dynamics of admixture between the regions first farmers and its indigenous hunter-gatherers was complex, with evidence of local admixture from hunter-gatherers related to those from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The population admixture was patchy across both space and time, varying in magnitude between 0% and 30% for different early Balkan farming populations. The hunter-gatherer admixture in the early farmers of the Balkans is not closely related to the hunter-gatherer admixture that is predominant in present-day Europeans. This suggests that the waves of farmers that contributed most of the migrants to northern and western Europe were not ones that mixed substantially with local Balkan hunter-gatherers.
We also analyze the data to generate new insights about natural selection. The first farmers of the Balkans were in the initial stages of adaptation to environments that were dramatically different from those that their ancestors had encountered. We show that many of the adaptations related to diet and immunity that later become common in Europe were already present in early Balkan farmer populations, but not at high frequency. Thus, the adaptation of the first European farmers to their local environment was driven to a substantial extent by pre-existing variantion.
So, these hunter-gatherers were related to EHG and SHG? I wonder what yDna they carried?
Why wouldn't most Europeans have ancestry from this admixture event? Did the main EEF group just move on into central and northern Europe? Did the admixed group die out? Or is it that the very first wave of farmers wasn't very successful and it's a later wave(s) from which Europeans are descended?
They're not saying no ancestry, so it wasn't a wipe out, but our understanding of this process was obviously too simple.