The genetic history of Ice Age Europe.

Nature
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

Modern humans arrived in Europe ~45,000 years ago, but little is known about their genetic composition before the start of farming ~8,500 years ago. Here we analyse genome-wide data from 51 Eurasians from ~45,000-7,000 years ago. Over this time, the proportion of Neanderthal DNA decreased from 3-6% to around 2%, consistent with natural selection against Neanderthal variants in modern humans. Whereas there is no evidence of the earliest modern humans in Europe contributing to the genetic composition of present-day Europeans, all individuals between ~37,000 and ~14,000 years ago descended from a single founder population which forms part of the ancestry of present-day Europeans. An ~35,000-year-old individual from northwest Europe represents an early branch of this founder population which was then displaced across a broad region, before reappearing in southwest Europe at the height of the last Ice Age ~19,000 years ago. During the major warming period after ~14,000 years ago, a genetic component related to present-day Near Easterners became widespread in Europe. These results document how population turnover and migration have been recurring themes of European prehistory.

Year of Publication
2016
Journal
Nature
Volume
534
Issue
7606
Pages
200-5
Date Published
2016 06 09
ISSN
1476-4687
URL
DOI
10.1038/nature17993
PubMed ID
27135931
PubMed Central ID
PMC4943878
Links
Grant list
263441 / European Research Council / International
R01 GM100233 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
GM100233 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States
HHMI / Howard Hughes Medical Institute / United States