David W. Anthony

Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000–3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost 400,000 polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of Western and Far Eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000–5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ∼8,000–7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ∼24,000-year-old Siberian. By ∼6,000–5,000 years ago, farmers throughout much of Europe had more hunter-gatherer ancestry than their predecessors, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but also from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ∼4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ∼75% of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ∼3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.

Genome-wide patterns of selection in 230 ancient Eurasians

Ancient DNA makes it possible to observe natural selection directly by analysing samples from populations before, during and after adaptation events. Here we report a genome-wide scan for selection using ancient DNA, capitalizing on the largest ancient DNA data set yet assembled: 230 West Eurasians who lived between 6500 and 300 bc, including 163 with newly reported data. The new samples include, to our knowledge, the first genome-wide ancient DNA from Anatolian Neolithic farmers, whose genetic material we obtained by extracting from petrous bones, and who we show were members of the population that was the source of Europe’s first farmers. We also report a transect of the steppe region in Samara between 5600 and 300 bc, which allows us to identify admixture into the steppe from at least two external sources. We detect selection at loci associated with diet, pigmentation and immunity, and two independent episodes of selection on height.

The Origins of Horseback Riding

The horse is ridden by means of the bit, and the bit leaves its trace on the horses teeth. The beginnings of horse-riding are here identified by defining and detecting microscopic bit wear on equid teeth, using comparative samples from 4 countries and 25,000 years of prehistory. Scanning electron microscope analysis demonstrates that bit wear is clearly distinguishable from other tooth damage. It first occurs in the Ukraine, USSR, at about 4000 BC. Soon thereafter, mobility became a cultural advantage that transformed Eurasian societies. Riding now appears to be the first major innovation in land transport, pre-dating the wheel.

Horse, wagon & chariot: Indo-European languages and archaeology

New discoveries across the steppe zone of eastern Europe, and new dates relating to those discoveries, keep that oldest of archaeological puzzles, the Indo-European question, happily unanswered. A version of this paper was given at a 1994 meeting, on ‘Language, culture and biology in prehistoric central Eurasia’—its title a reminder that the biological view of Indo-European may again be a growing interest.

Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe

The arrival of farming in Europe around 8,500 years ago necessitated adaptation to new environments, pathogens, diets, and social organizations. While indirect evidence of adaptation can be detected in patterns of genetic variation in present-day people, ancient DNA makes it possible to witness selection directly by analyzing samples from populations before, during and after adaptation events. Here we report the first genome-wide scan for selection using ancient DNA, capitalizing on the largest genome-wide dataset yet assembled: 230 West Eurasians dating to between 6500 and 1000 BCE, including 163 with newly reported data. The new samples include the first genome-wide data from the Anatolian Neolithic culture, who we show were members of the population that was the source of Europe’s first farmers, and whose genetic material we extracted by focusing on the DNA-rich petrous bone. We identify genome-wide significant signatures of selection at loci associated with diet, pigmentation and immunity, and two independent episodes of selection on height.

Ancient genomes revisit the ancestry of domestic and Przewalski’s horses

Revisiting the origins of modern horses The domestication of horses was very important in the history of humankind. However, the ancestry of modern horses and the location and timing of their emergence remain unclear. Gaunitz et al. generated 42 ancient-horse genomes. Their source samples included the Botai archaeological site in Central Asia, considered to include the earliest domesticated horses. Unexpectedly, Botai horses were the ancestors not of modern domestic horses, but rather of modern Przewalskis horses. Thus, in contrast to current thinking on horse domestication, modern horses may have been domesticated in other, more Western, centers of origin. Science, this issue p. 111 The earliest herded horses were ancestors of feral Przewalski’s horses but not of modern domesticated horses. The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5500 years ago, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains controversial. We generated 42 ancient-horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient- and modern-horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski’s horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4000 years ago to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age.

Pontic-Caspian Mesolithic and Early Neolithic societies at the time of the Black Sea flood: a small audience and small effects

Even if the Black Sea rose catastrophically and flooded the North Pontic plain about 7600-7300 calBC following Ryan and Pitmans revised chronology, only 100 to 150 individual foraging bands of 50-75 people each would have been forced out of the drowned North Pontic plains over a front more than 1000 km wide. We might be able to detect faint signs of their movements in some of the changes in distribution and types of flint tool kits in the Early Mesolithic, but there were no massive migrations outward from a flooded Black Sea basin. A review of Mesolithic and early Neolithic archaeological data in Ukraine provides little or no archaeological support for a sudden shift in human behavior at the time of the proposed flood.

The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia

The genetic formation of Central and South Asian populations has been unclear because of an absence of ancient DNA. To address this gap, we generated genome-wide data from 362 ancient individuals, including the first from eastern Iran, Turan (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), Bronze Age Kazakhstan, and South Asia. Our data reveal a complex set of genetic sources that ultimately combined to form the ancestry of South Asians today. We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE). These Steppe communities mixed genetically with peoples of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) whom they encountered in Turan (primarily descendants of earlier agriculturalists of Iran), but there is no evidence that the main BMAC population contributed genetically to later South Asians. Instead, Steppe communities integrated farther south throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, and we show that they mixed with a more southern population that we document at multiple sites as outlier individuals exhibiting a distinctive mixture of ancestry related to Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gathers. We call this group Indus Periphery because they were found at sites in cultural contact with the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and along its northern fringe, and also because they were genetically similar to post-IVC groups in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. By co-analyzing ancient DNA and genomic data from diverse present-day South Asians, we show that Indus Periphery-related people are the single most important source of ancestry in South Asia—consistent with the idea that the Indus Periphery individuals are providing us with the first direct look at the ancestry of peoples of the IVC—and we develop a model for the formation of present-day South Asians in terms of the temporally and geographically proximate sources of Indus Periphery-related, Steppe, and local South Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. Our results show how ancestry from the Steppe genetically linked Europe and South Asia in the Bronze Age, and identifies the populations that almost certainly were responsible for spreading Indo-European languages across much of Eurasia. One Sentence Summary Genome wide ancient DNA from 357 individuals from Central and South Asia sheds new light on the spread of Indo-European languages and parallels between the genetic history of two sub-continents, Europe and South Asia.

Menotti F. a Korvin-Piotrovskiy Aleksey G. (ed.). The Tripolye culture. Giant-settlements in Ukraine: formation, development and decline . viii+264 pages, 63 colour and baw illustrations, 5 tables. 2012. Oxford a Oakville (CT): Oxbow; 978-1-84217-483-8 paperback £ 40.

this—behavioural? ideological?—difference probably deserved greater attention, perhaps by the editors of one of the final contributions. Secondly, an internal, unresolved tension lies at the core of this volume. Its structure is intended to follow the progression of houses parallel to the spread of the Neolithic across Continental Europe, but each contribution remains firmly footed in a contextual, small-scale investigation. There seems to be no room for any large, comparative appraisal and surely this slot is not filled by Hodder’s paper. This being said, one paper does bridge the various scales of inquiry and, perhaps not so surprisingly, it was not written by an archaeologist, but by an anthropologist, Roxana Waterson. Taking full advantage of her external position, she offers the sole contribution that goes well beyond the house per se, and wanders into relatively unknown territories such as mobility, weaving together isotope, kinship and matrimonial rules, as well as aDNA and genetics.