Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/63576
Citations
Scopus Web of Science® Altmetric
?
?
Type: Journal article
Title: Ancient DNA from European early Neolithic farmers reveals their near eastern affinities
Author: Haak, W.
Balanovsky, O.
Sanchez, J.
Koshel, S.
Zaporozhchenko, V.
Adler, C.
Dersarkissian, C.
Brandt, G.
Schwarz, C.
Nicklisch, N.
Dresely, V.
Fritsch, B.
Balanovska, E.
Villems, R.
Meller, H.
Alt, K.
Cooper, A.
Citation: PLoS Biology, 2010; 8(11):1000536-1-1000536-16
Publisher: Public Library of Science
Issue Date: 2010
ISSN: 1544-9173
1545-7885
Editor: Penny, D.
Organisation: Genographic Consortium
Statement of
Responsibility: 
Wolfgang Haak, Oleg Balanovsky, Juan J. Sanchez, Sergey Koshel, Valery Zaporozhchenko, Christina J. Adler, Clio S. I. Der Sarkissian, Guido Brandt, Carolin Schwarz, Nicole Nicklisch, Veit Dresely, Barbara Fritsch, Elena Balanovska, Richard Villems, Harald Meller, Kurt W. Alt, Alan Cooper and the Genographic Consortium
Abstract: In Europe, the Neolithic transition (8,000–4,000 B.C.) from hunting and gathering to agricultural communities was one of the most important demographic events since the initial peopling of Europe by anatomically modern humans in the Upper Paleolithic (40,000 B.C.). However, the nature and speed of this transition is a matter of continuing scientific debate in archaeology, anthropology, and human population genetics. To date, inferences about the genetic make up of past populations have mostly been drawn from studies of modern-day Eurasian populations, but increasingly ancient DNA studies offer a direct view of the genetic past. We genetically characterized a population of the earliest farming culture in Central Europe, the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK; 5,500–4,900 calibrated B.C.) and used comprehensive phylogeographic and population genetic analyses to locate its origins within the broader Eurasian region, and to trace potential dispersal routes into Europe. We cloned and sequenced the mitochondrial hypervariable segment I and designed two powerful SNP multiplex PCR systems to generate new mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal data from 21 individuals from a complete LBK graveyard at Derenburg Meerenstieg II in Germany. These results considerably extend the available genetic dataset for the LBK (n = 42) and permit the first detailed genetic analysis of the earliest Neolithic culture in Central Europe (5,500–4,900 calibrated B.C.). We characterized the Neolithic mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity and geographical affinities of the early farmers using a large database of extant Western Eurasian populations (n = 23,394) and a wide range of population genetic analyses including shared haplotype analyses, principal component analyses, multidimensional scaling, geographic mapping of genetic distances, and Bayesian Serial Simcoal analyses. The results reveal that the LBK population shared an affinity with the modern-day Near East and Anatolia, supporting a major genetic input from this area during the advent of farming in Europe. However, the LBK population also showed unique genetic features including a clearly distinct distribution of mitochondrial haplogroup frequencies, confirming that major demographic events continued to take place in Europe after the early Neolithic.
Keywords: Members of the Genographic Consortium
Humans
DNA, Mitochondrial
Emigration and Immigration
Fossils
Agriculture
Europe
Rights: Copyright: © 2010 Haak et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000536
Published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000536
Appears in Collections:Aurora harvest 5
Australian Centre for Ancient DNA publications
Environment Institute Leaders publications
Environment Institute publications

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
hdl_63576.pdfPublished version2.53 MBAdobe PDFView/Open


Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.