RT Journal Article
T1 Paleogenomic Evidence for Multi-generational Mixing between Neolithic Farmers and Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherers in the Lower Danube Basin
A1 González-Fortes, Gloria
A1 Jones, Eppie R.
A1 Lightfoot, Emma
A1 Bonsall, Clive
A1 Lazar, Catalin
A1 Grandal-d’Anglade, Aurora
A1 Garralda Benajes, María Dolores
A1 Drak Hernández, Labib
A1 Siska, Veronika
A1 Simalcsik, Angela
A1 Boroneant, Adina
A1 Vidal Romanı, Juan Ramón
A1 Vaqueiro Rodríguez, Marcos
A1 Arias Macias, Pablo
A1 Pinhasi, Ron
A1 Manica, Andrea
A1 Hofreiter, Michael
AB The transition from hunting and gathering to farming involved profound cultural and technological changes. In Western and Central Europe, these changes occurred rapidly and synchronously after the arrival of early farmers of Anatolian origin [1–3], who largely replaced the local Mesolithic huntergatherers [1, 4–6]. Further east, in the Baltic region, the transition was gradual, with little or no genetic input from incoming farmers [7]. Here we use ancient DNA to investigate the relationship between huntergatherers and farmers in the Lower Danube basin, a geographically intermediate area that is characterized by a rapid Neolithic transition but also by the presence of archaeological evidence that points to cultural exchange, and thus possible admixture, between hunter-gatherers and farmers. We recovered four human paleogenomes (1.13 to 4.13 coverage) from Romania spanning a time transect between 8.8 thousand years ago (kya) and 5.4 kya and supplemented them with two Mesolithic genomes (1.73 and 5.33) from Spain to provide further context on the genetic background of Mesolithic Europe. Our results show major Western hunter-gatherer (WHG) ancestry in a Romanian Eneolithic sample with a minor, but sizeable, contribution from Anatolian farmers, suggesting multiple admixture events between hunter-gatherers and farmers. Dietary stableisotope analysis of this sample suggests a mixed terrestrial/aquatic diet. Our results provide support for complex interactions among hunter-gatherers and farmers in the Danube basin, demonstrating that in some regions, demic and cultural diffusion were not mutually exclusive, but merely the ends of a continuum for the process of Neolithization
PB Elsevier
SN 0960-9822, ESSN: 1879-0445
YR 2017
FD 2017-06-19
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/17960
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/17960
LA eng
NO Unión Europea. FP7
NO Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO)
NO MEN-UEFISCDI (Rumanía)
NO Herchel Smith Research Fellowship(UK)
NO Gates Cambridge Trust (UK)
DS Docta Complutense
RD 3 may 2024