- Article
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Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain
- Selina Brace1 na1,
- Yoan Diekmann2 na1,
- Thomas J. Booth1 na1,
- Lucy van Dorp ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-6211-23103,
- Zuzana Faltyskova2,
- Nadin Rohland4,
- Swapan Mallick3,5,6,
- Iñigo Olalde4,
- Matthew Ferry4,6,
- Megan Michel4,6,
- Jonas Oppenheimer4,6,
- Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht4,6,
- Kristin Stewardson4,6,
- Rui Martiniano ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0003-0216-778X7,
- Susan Walsh8,
- Manfred Kayser ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-4958-847X9,
- Sophy Charlton ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0001-7487-26351,10,
- Garrett Hellenthal3,
- Ian Armit ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0001-8669-381011,
- Rick Schulting12,
- Oliver E. Craig ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-4296-840210,
- Alison Sheridan13,
- Mike Parker Pearson14,
- Chris Stringer ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-9183-73371,
- David Reich4,5,6 na2,
- Mark G. Thomas ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-2452-981X2,3 na2 &
- …
- Ian Barnes ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0001-8322-69181 na2
Nature Ecology & Evolutionvolume 3, pages765–771 (2019)Cite this article
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AnAuthor Correction to this article was published on 08 May 2019
This article has beenupdated
Abstract
The roles of migration, admixture and acculturation in the European transition to farming have been debated for over 100 years. Genome-wide ancient DNA studies indicate predominantly Aegean ancestry for continental Neolithic farmers, but also variable admixture with local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Neolithic cultures first appear in Britain circa 4000 bc, a millennium after they appeared in adjacent areas of continental Europe. The pattern and process of this delayed British Neolithic transition remain unclear. We assembled genome-wide data from 6 Mesolithic and 67 Neolithic individuals found in Britain, dating 8500–2500 bc. Our analyses reveal persistent genetic affinities between Mesolithic British and Western European hunter-gatherers. We find overwhelming support for agriculture being introduced to Britain by incoming continental farmers, with small, geographically structured levels of hunter-gatherer ancestry. Unlike other European Neolithic populations, we detect no resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry at any time during the Neolithic in Britain. Genetic affinities with Iberian Neolithic individuals indicate that British Neolithic people were mostly descended from Aegean farmers who followed the Mediterranean route of dispersal. We also infer considerable variation in pigmentation levels in Europe by circa 6000 bc.
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Data availability
BAM files (one file per library, before realigning around InDels; see Supplementary Table1) have been deposited at the European Nucleotide Archive under study accessionPRJEB31249.
Change history
08 May 2019
In the version of this Article originally published, there were errors in the colour ordering of the legend in Fig. 5b, and in the positions of the target and surrogate populations in Fig. 5c. This has now been corrected. The conclusions of the study are in no way affected. The errors have been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Longleat Estate, T. Lord at Lower Winskill Farm, B. Chandler at Torquay Museum, A. Chamberlain at the University of Manchester, L. Wilson and G. Mullan at the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society, E. Walker, A. Gwilt and J. Deacon at the National Museum of Wales, A. Maxted at Brighton Museum, M. Lahr at the Duckworth Laboratory, B. Lane at Wells Museum, M. Smith at Bournemouth University, D. Rice at the Museum of Gloucester and R. Kruszynski at the Natural History Museum for providing access to samples. In addition, Y.D. wishes to thank J. Blöcher, A. Scheu, C. Sell and J. Burger for discussions on the bioinformatic pipeline, and V. Link for help with ATLAS. M.G.T. and I.B. were supported by a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award (project No. 100713/Z/12/Z). S.C. was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/K500987/1). L.v.D acknowledges financial support from the Newton Trust (grant No. MR/P007597/1). R.M. was supported by an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship (No. ALTF 133-2017). D.R. was supported by a NIH grant (No. GM100233), by NSF HOMINID (No. BCS-1032255) and by an Allen Discovery Center of the Paul Allen Foundation, and is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. C.S. is supported by the Calleva Foundation and the Human Origins Research Fund. S.W. was supported by the US National Institute of Justice (grant No. 2014-DN-BX-K031).
Author information
These authors contributed equally: Selina Brace, Yoan Diekmann, Thomas J. Booth.
These authors jointly supervised this work: David Reich, Mark G. Thomas, Ian Barnes.
Authors and Affiliations
Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, UK
Selina Brace, Thomas J. Booth, Sophy Charlton, Chris Stringer & Ian Barnes
Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, UK
Yoan Diekmann, Zuzana Faltyskova & Mark G. Thomas
UCL Genetics Institute, University College London, London, UK
Lucy van Dorp, Swapan Mallick, Garrett Hellenthal & Mark G. Thomas
Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Nadin Rohland, Iñigo Olalde, Matthew Ferry, Megan Michel, Jonas Oppenheimer, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Kristin Stewardson & David Reich
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
Swapan Mallick & David Reich
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Swapan Mallick, Matthew Ferry, Megan Michel, Jonas Oppenheimer, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Kristin Stewardson & David Reich
Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Rui Martiniano
Department of Biology, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Susan Walsh
Department of Genetic Identification, Erasmus University Medical Centre Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Manfred Kayser
Bioarch, University of York, York, UK
Sophy Charlton & Oliver E. Craig
School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK
Ian Armit
Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Rick Schulting
National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, UK
Alison Sheridan
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK
Mike Parker Pearson
- Selina Brace
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Contributions
I.B. and M.G.T. conceived the project. Y.D., S.B., Z.F., O.C. and T.B. contributed to the project design. S.B., Y.D., T.B., L.v.D, N.R., S.M., I.O., M.F., M.M., J.O., N.B., K.S., R.M., S.C. and S.W. generated and analysed data. I.B., M.G.T., Y.D., S.B., T.B., M.K., S.W., G.H., I.A., R.S., O.C., A.S., M.P.P., C.S. and D.R. contributed to the sampling strategy and the interpretation of results. I.B., M.G.T., Y.D., S.B. and T.B. wrote the paper, with contributions from all other authors.
Corresponding authors
Correspondence toMark G. Thomas orIan Barnes.
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Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Notes 1–7 and Supplementary Figs. 1–23
Supplementary Data 1
Summary of sequencing data per individual with relevant metadata
Supplementary Data 2
Functional variation
Supplementary Data 3
Admixture dates
Supplementary Data 4
Pairwise comparison of WHG admixture proportions
Supplementary Data 5
Y-chromosomal lineages
Supplementary Data 6
New radiocarbon dates and stable isotopes
Supplementary Data 7
Chronological model outputs
Supplementary Data 8
SOURCEFIND inferred proportions of ancient ancestry
Supplementary Data 9
SOURCEFIND inferred proportions of modern ancestry
Supplementary Data 10
qpGraph outliers
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Brace, S., Diekmann, Y., Booth, T.J.et al. Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain.Nat Ecol Evol3, 765–771 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0871-9
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