Survival of hunter-gatherer ancestry in West-Central European Neolithic

france-cultures-late-neolithic

Recent papers on France and neighbouring regions, Ancient genome-wide DNA from France highlights the complexity of interactions between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers, by Rivollat et al. Science Advances (2020) 6(22), and Ancient genomes from present-day France unveil 7,000 years of its demographic history, by Brunel et al. PNAS (2020).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

I. Survival of HG ancestry in Central Europe

From Rivollat et al. (2020):

Here, we present newly typed genome-wide data from 101 individuals from 12 sites from modern-day France and Germany (3 Late Mesolithic and 98 Neolithic, 7000–3000 cal BCE (…)

We explored

Read the rest “Survival of hunter-gatherer ancestry in West-Central European Neolithic”

Early arrival of Steppe ancestry in Switzerland

late-neolithic-western-europe

Open access paper Ancient genomes reveal social and genetic structure of Late Neolithic Switzerland by Furtwängler et al. Nat. Commun. (2020).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

The ancient individuals from this study originate from 13 Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites in Switzerland, Southern Germany, and the Alsace region in France. All samples taken from the individuals were radiocarbon dated.

The arrival of Steppe ancestry

Two distinct clusters can be identified and were also confirmed by ADMIXTURE analysis, one consisting of individuals dating to 4770–2500 calBCE, and one comprising individuals dating to 2900–1750 calBCE. The oldest individuals from the sites of

Read the rest “Early arrival of Steppe ancestry in Switzerland”