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Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East
- Iosif Lazaridis1,2,
- Dani Nadel3,
- Gary Rollefson4,
- Deborah C. Merrett5,
- Nadin Rohland1,
- Swapan Mallick1,2,6,
- Daniel Fernandes7,8,
- Mario Novak7,9,
- Beatriz Gamarra7,
- Kendra Sirak7,10,
- Sarah Connell7,
- Kristin Stewardson1,6,
- Eadaoin Harney1,6,11,
- Qiaomei Fu1,12,13,
- Gloria Gonzalez-Fortes14,
- Eppie R. Jones15,
- Songül Alpaslan Roodenberg16,
- György Lengyel17,
- Fanny Bocquentin18,
- Boris Gasparian19,
- Janet M. Monge20,
- Michael Gregg20,
- Vered Eshed21,
- Ahuva-Sivan Mizrahi21,
- Christopher Meiklejohn22,
- Fokke Gerritsen23,
- Luminita Bejenaru24,
- Matthias Blüher25,
- Archie Campbell26,
- Gianpiero Cavalleri27,
- David Comas28,
- Philippe Froguel29,30,
- Edmund Gilbert27,
- Shona M. Kerr26,
- Peter Kovacs31,
- Johannes Krause32,
- Darren McGettigan33,
- Michael Merrigan34,
- D. Andrew Merriwether35,
- Seamus O'Reilly34,
- Martin B. Richards36,
- Ornella Semino37,
- Michel Shamoon-Pour35,
- Gheorghe Stefanescu38,
- Michael Stumvoll25,
- Anke Tönjes25,
- Antonio Torroni37,
- James F. Wilson39,40,
- Loic Yengo29,
- Nelli A. Hovhannisyan41,
- Nick Patterson2,
- Ron Pinhasi7 na1 &
- …
- David Reich1,2,6 na1
Naturevolume 536, pages419–424 (2016)Cite this article
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Abstract
We report genome-wide ancient DNA from 44 ancient Near Easterners ranging in time between ~12,000 and 1,400bc, from Natufian hunter–gatherers to Bronze Age farmers. We show that the earliest populations of the Near East derived around half their ancestry from a ‘Basal Eurasian’ lineage that had little if any Neanderthal admixture and that separated from other non-African lineages before their separation from each other. The first farmers of the southern Levant (Israel and Jordan) and Zagros Mountains (Iran) were strongly genetically differentiated, and each descended from local hunter–gatherers. By the time of the Bronze Age, these two populations and Anatolian-related farmers had mixed with each other and with the hunter–gatherers of Europe to greatly reduce genetic differentiation. The impact of the Near Eastern farmers extended beyond the Near East: farmers related to those of Anatolia spread westward into Europe; farmers related to those of the Levant spread southward into East Africa; farmers related to those of Iran spread northward into the Eurasian steppe; and people related to both the early farmers of Iran and to the pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe spread eastward into South Asia.
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Data deposits
The aligned sequences are available through the European Nucleotide Archive under accession numberPRJEB14455. Fully public subsets of the analysis datasets are athttp://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reichlab/Reich_Lab/Datasets.html. The complete dataset (including present-day humans for which the informed consent is not consistent with public posting of data) is available to researchers who send a signed letter to D.R. indicating that they will abide by specified usage conditions (Supplementary Information, section 2).
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Acknowledgements
We thank the 238 human subjects who donated samples for genome-wide analysis, and D. Labuda and P. Zalloua for sharing samples from Poland and Lebanon. TheFig. 1a map was plotted in R using the worldHiRes map of the ‘mapdata’ package (using public domain data from the CIA World Data Bank II). We thank O. Bar-Yosef, M. Bonogofsky, I. Hershkowitz, M. Lipson, I. Mathieson, H. May, R. Meadow, I. Olalde, S. Paabo, P. Skoglund, and N. Nakatsuka for comments and critiques, and D. Bradley, M. Dallakyan, S. Esoyan, M. Ferry and M. Michel, and A. Yesayan, for contributions to bone preparation and ancient DNA work. D.F. and M.N. were supported by Irish Research Council grants GOIPG/2013/36 and GOIPD/2013/1, respectively. S.C. was funded by the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) ERC Support Programme. Q.F. was funded by the Bureau of International Cooperation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (L1524016) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Discipline Development Strategy Project (2015-DX-C-03). The Scottish diversity data was funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates (CZD/16/6), the Scottish Funding Council (HR03006), and a project grant from the Scottish Executive Health Department, Chief Scientist Office (CZB/4/285). M.S., A.Tön., M.B. and P.K. were supported by the German Research Foundation (CRC 1052; B01, B03, C01). M.S.-P. was funded by a Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork grant (9005), and by the National Science Foundation DDRIG (BCS-1455744). P.K. was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (FKZ: 01EO1501). J.F.W. acknowledge the MRC ‘QTL in Health and Disease’ programme grant. The Romanian diversity data was supported by the EC Commission, Directorate General XII (Supplementary Agreement ERBCIPDCT 940038 to the Contract ERBCHRXCT 920032, coordinated by A. Piazza, Turin, Italy). M.R. received support from the Leverhulme Trust’s Doctoral Scholarship programme. O.S. and A.Tor. were supported by the University of Pavia (MIGRAT-IN-G) and the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research: Progetti Ricerca Interesse Nazionale 2012. The Raqefet Cave Natufian project was supported by funds from the National Geographic Society (grant 8915-11), the Wenner-Gren Foundation (grant 7481) and the Irene Levi-Sala CARE Foundation, while radiocarbon dating on the samples was funded by the Israel Science Foundation (grant 475/10; E. Boaretto). R.P. was supported by ERC starting grant ADNABIOARC (263441). D.R. was supported by NIH grant GM100233, by NSF HOMINID BCS-1032255, and is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
Author information
Ron Pinhasi and David Reich: These authors jointly supervised this work.
Authors and Affiliations
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA
Iosif Lazaridis, Nadin Rohland, Swapan Mallick, Kristin Stewardson, Eadaoin Harney, Qiaomei Fu & David Reich
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, 02142, Massachusetts, USA
Iosif Lazaridis, Swapan Mallick, Nick Patterson & David Reich
The Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa, 3498838, Israel
Dani Nadel
Department of Anthropology, Whitman College, Walla Walla, 99362, Washington, USA
Gary Rollefson
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, V5A 1S6, British Columbia, Canada
Deborah C. Merrett
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA
Swapan Mallick, Kristin Stewardson, Eadaoin Harney & David Reich
School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, Belfield, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland
Daniel Fernandes, Mario Novak, Beatriz Gamarra, Kendra Sirak, Sarah Connell & Ron Pinhasi
Department of Life Sciences, CIAS, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, 3000-456, Portugal
Daniel Fernandes
Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb, 10000, Croatia
Mario Novak
Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, 30322, Georgia, USA
Kendra Sirak
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA
Eadaoin Harney
Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
Qiaomei Fu
Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IVPP, CAS, 100044, Beijing, China
Qiaomei Fu
Department of Biology and Evolution, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, I-44121, Italy
Gloria Gonzalez-Fortes
Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK
Eppie R. Jones
J.M. van Nassaulaan 9, Santpoort-Noord, 2071 VA, The Netherlands
Songül Alpaslan Roodenberg
Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, University of Miskolc, Miskolc-Egyetemváros, 3515, Hungary
György Lengyel
French National Centre for Scientific Research, UMR 7041, Nanterre Cedex, 92023, France
Fanny Bocquentin
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Yerevan, 0025, Republic of Armenia
Boris Gasparian
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, 19104, Pennsylvania, USA
Janet M. Monge & Michael Gregg
Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem, 91004, Israel
Vered Eshed & Ahuva-Sivan Mizrahi
Department of Anthropology, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, R3B 2E9, Manitoba, Canada
Christopher Meiklejohn
Netherlands Institute in Turkey, Istanbul, 34433, Turkey
Fokke Gerritsen
Faculty of Biology, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Iasi, 700505, Romania
Luminita Bejenaru
Department of Internal Medicine and Dermatology, Clinic of Endocrinology and Nephrology, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
Matthias Blüher, Michael Stumvoll & Anke Tönjes
Generation Scotland, Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine, MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, EH4 2XU, UK
Archie Campbell & Shona M. Kerr
RCSI Molecular & Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin 2, Ireland
Gianpiero Cavalleri & Edmund Gilbert
Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-UPF), Departament de Ciències Experimentals i de la Salut, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, 08003, Spain
David Comas
Univ. Lille, CNRS, Institut Pasteur de Lille, UMR 8199 - EGID, Lille, F-59000, France
Philippe Froguel & Loic Yengo
Department of Genomics of Common Disease, Imperial College London, London Hammersmith Hospital, London, W12 0HS, UK
Philippe Froguel
Leipzig University Medical Center, IFB Adiposity Diseases, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
Peter Kovacs
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, 07745, Germany
Johannes Krause
School of History, Newman Building, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
Darren McGettigan
Genealogical Society of Ireland, Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland
Michael Merrigan & Seamus O'Reilly
Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University, State University of New York, New York, 13902, USA
D. Andrew Merriwether & Michel Shamoon-Pour
Department of Biological Sciences, School of Applied Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, HD1 3DH, Huddersfield, UK
Martin B. Richards
Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “L. Spallanzani”, Università di Pavia, Pavia, 27100, Italy
Ornella Semino & Antonio Torroni
Institutul de Cercetari Biologice, Iaşi, 700505, Romania
Gheorghe Stefanescu
Usher Institute for Population Health Sciences and Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9AG, UK
James F. Wilson
MRC Human Genetics Unit, MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH4 2XU, UK
James F. Wilson
Center of Excellence in Applied Biosciences, Yerevan State University, Yerevan, 0025, Republic of Armenia
Nelli A. Hovhannisyan
- Iosif Lazaridis
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Contributions
R.P. and D.R. conceived the idea for the study. D.N., G.R., D.C.M., S.C., S.A.R., G.L., F.B., B.Gas., J.M.M., M.G., V.E., A.M., C.M., F.G., N.A.H. and R.P. assembled skeletal material. N.R., D.F., M.N., B.Gam., K.Si., S.C., K.St., E.H., Q.F., G.G.-F., E.R.J., R.P. and D.R. performed or supervised ancient DNA wet laboratory work. L.B, M.B., A.C., G.C., D.C., P.F., E.G., S.M.K., P.K., J.K., D.M., M.M., D.A.M., S.O., M.B.R., O.S., M.S.-P., G.S., M.S., A.Tön., A.Tor., J.F.W., L.Y. and D.R. assembled present-day samples for genotyping. I.L, N.P. and D.R. developed methods for data analysis. I.L., S.M., Q.F., N.P. and D.R. analysed data. I.L., R.P. and D.R. wrote the manuscript and supplements.
Corresponding authors
Correspondence toIosif Lazaridis,Ron Pinhasi orDavid Reich.
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The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Additional information
Reviewer Information
Nature thanks O. Bar-Yosef, G. Coop and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Extended data figures and tables
Extended Data Figure 2 Genetic structure in ancient West Eurasian populations across time and decline of genetic differentiation over time.
a, ADMIXTURE model-based clustering analysis of 2,583 present-day humans and 281 ancient samples; we show the results only for ancient samples forK = 11 clusters.b, PairwiseFST between 19 Ancient West Eurasian populations (arranged in approximate chronological order), and select present-day populations.
Extended Data Figure 3 Outgroupf3(Mbuti; X, Y) for pairs of ancient populations.
The dendrogram is plotted for convenience and should not be interpreted as a phylogenetic tree. Areas of high shared genetic drift are ‘yellow’ and include from top-right to bottom-left along the diagonal: early Anatolian and European farmers; European hunter–gatherers, Steppe populations and populations admixed with steppe ancestry; populations from the Levant from the Epipalaeolithic (Natufians) to the Bronze Age; populations from Iran from the Mesolithic to the Late Neolithic.
Extended Data Figure 4 Reduction of genetic differentiation in West Eurasia over time.
We measure differentiation byFST. Each column of the 5 × 5 matrix of plots represents a major region and each row the earliest population with at least two individuals from each major region.
Extended Data Figure 5 West Eurasian related admixture in East Africa, Eastern Eurasia and South Asia.
a, Levantine ancestry in Eastern Africa in the Human Origins dataset.b, Levantine ancestry in different Eastern African population in the dataset from Paganiet al. (2012); the remainder of the ancestry is a clade with Mota, a ~4,500 year old sample from Ethiopia49.c, EHG ancestry in Eastern Eurasians.d, Afontova Gora (AG2)-related ancestry in Eastern Eurasians; the remainder of their ancestry is a clade with Onge.e, Mixture proportions for South Asian populations showing that they can be modelled as having West Eurasian-related ancestry similar to that in populations from both the Eurasian steppe and Iran.
Extended Data Figure 6 Inferred position of ancient populations in West Eurasian PCA according to the model ofFig. 4.
Extended Data Figure 7 Admixture from ghost populations using ‘cline intersection’.
a–f, We model eachTest population (purple) as a mixture (pink) of a fixed reference population (blue) and a ghost population (orange) residing on the cline defined by two other populations (red and green) according to the visualization method ofSupplementary Information, section 10.a, Early/Middle Bronze Age steppe populations are a mixture of Iran_ChL and a population on the WHG→SHG cline.b, Scandinavian hunter–gatherers (SHG) are a mixture of WHG and a population on the Iran_ChL→Steppe_EMBA cline.c, Caucasus hunter–gatherers (CHG) are a mixture of Iran_N and both WHG and EHG.d, Late Neolithic/Bronze Age Europeans are a mixture of the preceding Europe_MNChL population and a population with both EHG and Iran_ChL ancestry.e, Somali are a mixture of Mota49 and a population on the Iran_ChL→Levant_BA cline.f, Eastern European hunter–gatherers (EHG) are a mixture of WHG and a population on the Onge→Han cline.
Extended Data Figure 8 Admixture from a ‘ghost’ ANE population into both European and Eastern Eurasian ancestry.
EHG, and Upper Palaeolithic Siberians Mal’ta 1 (MA1) and Afontova Gora 2 (AG2) are positioned near the intersection of clines formed by European hunter–gatherers (WHG, SHG, EHG) and Eastern non-Africans in the space of outgroupf3-statistics of the formf3(Mbuti; Papuan,Test) andf3(Mbuti; Switzerland_HG,Test).
Supplementary information
Supplementary Table 1
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Supplementary Table 2
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Supplementary Table 3
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Lazaridis, I., Nadel, D., Rollefson, G.et al. Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East.Nature536, 419–424 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19310
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