Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia

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Authors

ALLENTOFT Morten SJÖGREN Karl-Göran SIKORA Martin SJÖGREN Karl-Gören RASMUSSEN Simon STENDERUP Jesper DAMGAARD Peter SCHROEDER Hannes AHLSTRÖM Torbjörn VINNER Lasse MALASPINAS Anna-Sapfo MARGARYAN Ashot HIGHAM Tom CHIVALL David LYNNERUP Niels HARVIG Lise BARON Justyna DELLA CASA Philippe DABROWSKI Pawel DUFFY Paul EBEL Alexander EPIMAKHOV Andrey FREI Karin FURMANEK Miroslaw GRALAK Tomasz GROMOV Andrey GRONKIEWICZ Stanislaw GRUPE Gisela HAJDU Tamás JARYSZ Radoslaw KHARTANOVICH Valeri KHOKHLOV Alexandr KISS Viktória KOLÁŘ Jan KRIISKA Aivar LASAK Irena LONGHI Cristina MCGLYNN George MERKEVICIUS Algimantas MERKYTE Inga METSPALU Mait MKRTCHYAN Ruzan MOISEYEV Vyacheslav PAJA László PÁLFI György POKUTTA Dalia POSPIESZNY Lukasz PRICE Douglas SAAG Lehti SABLIN Mikhail SHISHLINA Natalia SMRČKA Václav SOENOV Vasili SZEVERÉNYI Vajk TÓTH Gusztáv TRIFANOVA Synaru VARUL Liivi VICZE Magdolna YEPISKOPOSYAN Levon ZHITENEV Vladislav ORLANDO Ludovic SICHERITZ-PONTÉN Thomas BRUNAK Soren NIELSEN Rasmus KRISTIANSEN Kristian WILLERSLEV Eske RASMUSSEN Morten

Year of publication 2015
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Nature
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14507
Field Archaeology, anthropology, ethnology
Keywords genetics; migrations; Bronze Age; Final Neolithic; Yamnaja culture
Description The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000–1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. We show that the Bronze Age was a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacements, responsible for shaping major parts of present-day demographic structure in both Europe and Asia. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesized spread of Indo-European languages during the Early Bronze Age.Wealso demonstrate that light skin pigmentation in Europeans was already present at high frequency in the Bronze Age, but not lactose tolerance, indicating a more recent onset of positive selection on lactose tolerance than previously thought.
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