Spread of Indo-European and Uralic speakers in ADMIXTURE

The following are updated files for unsupervised ADMIXTURE of most available ancient Eurasian samples with K=7. For reference, see PCA of ancient and modern Eurasian samples.

NOTE. For a precise interpretation of ancestry evolution, be sure to first check the posts on the expansion of “Steppe ancestry”, on the spread of Yamnaya ancestry with Indo-Europeans, and on the evolution of Corded Ware ancestry typical of modern Uralic populations.

ADMIXTURE timeline

This is a YouTube video similar to the one on Indo-Europeans and Y-DNA evolution:

Some comments

I have tried running supervised ADMIXTURE models by selecting

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Scythians in Ukraine, Natufian and sub-Saharan ancestry in North Africa (ISBA 8, 21st Sep)

Interesting information from ISBA 8 sesions today, as seen on Twitter (see programme in PDF, and sessions from the 19th and the 20th september).

Official abstracts are listed first (emphasis mine), then reports and images and/or link to tweets. Here is the list for quick access:

Scythian population genetics and settlement patterns

Genetic continuity in the western Eurasian Steppe broken not due to Scythian dominance, … Read the rest “Scythians in Ukraine, Natufian and sub-Saharan ancestry in North Africa (ISBA 8, 21st Sep)”

Expansion of haplogroup G2a in Anatolia possibly associated with the Mature Aceramic period

Preprint Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia, by Feldman et al. bioRxiv (2018).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Anatolian hunter-gatherers experienced climatic changes during the last glaciation and inhabited a region that connects Europe to the Near East. However, interactions between Anatolia and Southeastern Europe in the later Upper Palaeolithic/Epipalaeolithic are so far not well documented archaeologically. Interestingly, a previous genomic study showed that present-day Near-Easterners share more alleles with European hunter-gatherers younger than 14,000 BP (‘Later European HG’) than with earlier ones (‘Earlier European HG’). With ancient genomic data available,

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Migrations in the Levant region during the Chalcolithic, also marked by distinct Y-DNA

Open access Ancient DNA from Chalcolithic Israel reveals the role of population mixture in cultural transformation, by Harney et al. Nature Communications (2018).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine, reference numbers deleted for clarity):

Introduction

The material culture of the Late Chalcolithic period in the southern Levant contrasts qualitatively with that of earlier and later periods in the same region. The Late Chalcolithic in the Levant is characterized by increases in the density of settlements, introduction of sanctuaries, utilization of ossuaries in secondary burials, and expansion of public ritual practices as well as an efflorescence of symbolic motifs sculpted and

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Expansion of domesticated goat echoes expansion of early farmers

New paper (behind paywall) Ancient goat genomes reveal mosaic domestication in the Fertile Crescent, by Daly et al. Science (2018) 361(6397):85-88.

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Thus, our data favor a process of Near Eastern animal domestication that is dispersed in space and time, rather than radiating from a central core (3, 11). This resonates with archaeozoological evidence for disparate early management strategies from early Anatolian, Iranian, and Levantine Neolithic sites (12, 13). Interestingly, our finding of divergent goat genomes within the Neolithic echoes genetic investigation of early farmers. Northwestern Anatolian and Iranian human Neolithic genomes are also divergent (14–16),

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Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub-Saharan African human populations

Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub-Saharan African human populations, by van de Loosdrecht et al. Science (2018).

Abstract

North Africa is a key region for understanding human history, but the genetic history of its people is largely unknown. We present genomic data from seven 15,000-year-old modern humans from Morocco, attributed to the Iberomaurusian culture. We find a genetic affinity with early Holocene Near Easterners, best represented by Levantine Natufians, suggesting a pre-agricultural connection between Africa and the Near East. We do not find evidence for gene flow from Paleolithic Europeans into Late Pleistocene North Africans

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Migration vs. Acculturation models for Aegean Neolithic in Genetics — still depending strongly on Archaeology

Recent paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Archaeogenomic analysis of the first steps of Neolithization in Anatolia and the Aegean, by Kılınç et al. (2017).

Abstract:

The Neolithic transition in west Eurasia occurred in two main steps: the gradual development of sedentism and plant cultivation in the Near East and the subsequent spread of Neolithic cultures into the Aegean and across Europe after 7000 cal BCE. Here, we use published ancient genomes to investigate gene flow events in west Eurasia during the Neolithic transition. We confirm that the Early Neolithic central Anatolians in the ninth millennium BCE

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