Vittrup Man–The life-history of a genetic foreigner in Neolithic Denmark

The lethally maltreated body of Vittrup Man was deposited in a Danish bog, probably as part of a ritualised sacrifice. It happened between c. 3300 and 3100 cal years BC, i.e., during the period of the local farming-based Funnel Beaker Culture. In terms of skull morphological features, he differs from the majority of the contemporaneous farmers found in Denmark, and associates with hunter-gatherers, who inhabited Scandinavia during the previous millennia. His skeletal remains were selected for transdisciplinary analysis to reveal his life-history in terms of a population historical perspective. We report the combined results of an integrated set of genetic, isotopic, physical anthropological and archaeological analytical approaches. Strontium signature suggests a foreign birthplace that could be in Norway or Sweden. In addition, enamel oxygen isotope values indicate that as a child he lived in a colder climate, i.e., to the north of the regions inhabited by farmers. Genomic data in fact demonstrates that he is closely related to Mesolithic humans known from Norway and Sweden. Moreover, dietary stable isotope analyses on enamel and bone collagen demonstrate a fisher-hunter way of life in his childhood and a diet typical of farmers later on. Such a variable life-history is also reflected by proteomic analysis of hardened organic deposits on his teeth, indicating the consumption of forager food (seal, whale and marine fish) as well as farmer food (sheep/goat). From a dietary isotopic transect of one of his teeth it is shown that his transfer between societies of foragers and farmers took place near to the end of his teenage years

The selection landscape and genetic legacy of ancient Eurasians

The Holocene (beginning around 12,000 years ago) encompassed some of the most significant changes in human evolution, with far-reaching consequences for the dietary, physical and mental health of present-day populations. Using a dataset of more than 1,600 imputed ancient genomes, we modelled the selection landscape during the transition from hunting and gathering, to farming and pastoralism across West Eurasia. We identify key selection signals related to metabolism, including that selection at the FADS cluster began earlier than previously reported and that selection near the LCT locus predates the emergence of the lactase persistence allele by thousands of years. We also find strong selection in the HLA region, possibly due to increased exposure to pathogens during the Bronze Age. Using ancient individuals to infer local ancestry tracts in over 400,000 samples from the UK Biobank, we identify widespread differences in the distribution of Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age ancestries across Eurasia. By calculating ancestry-specific polygenic risk scores, we show that height differences between Northern and Southern Europe are associated with differential Steppe ancestry, rather than selection, and that risk alleles for mood-related phenotypes are enriched for Neolithic farmer ancestry, whereas risk alleles for diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease are enriched for Western hunter-gatherer ancestry. Our results indicate that ancient selection and migration were large contributors to the distribution of phenotypic diversity in present-day Europeans

A late Neanderthal reveals genetic isolation in their populations before extinction

Summary Neanderthal genomes have been recovered from sites across Eurasia, painting an increasingly complex picture of their populations’ structure, mostly indicating that late European Neanderthals belonged to a single metapopulation with no significant evidence of deep population structure. Here we report the discovery of a late Neanderthal individual, nicknamed “Thorin”, from Grotte Mandrin in Mediterranean France, and his genome. These dentognathic fossils, including a rare example of distomolars, are associated with a rich archeological record of their final technological traditions in this region ∼50-42 thousand years ago. Thorin’s genome reveals a deep divergence with other late Neanderthals. Thorin belonged to a population with small group size that showed no genetic introgression with other known late European Neanderthals, revealing genetic isolation of his lineage despite them living in neighboring regions. These results have important implications for resolving competing hypotheses about causes of the Neanderthals’ disappearance. One Sentence Summary A new French Neanderthal fossil and its genome reveal complex population dynamics during the past 100,000 years

Vittrup Man–The life-history of a genetic foreigner in Neolithic Denmark

Acknowledgements: We acknowledge a conservation specialist from Finland (NLES, previous employee of Bevaringscenter Nordjylland) for calling attention to the archaic appearance of the Vittrup skull; Paula Reimer (14CHRONO, Queen’s University Belfast), for providing methodological clarifications on AMS dates and isotopic measurements; Paul Fullagar (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) and David Dettman (University of Arizona, Tucson) for effective handling of our enamel Sr and δ13C & δ18O samples, respectively, during a complicated period of pandemic close downs; Poul Otto Nielsen (Danish National Museum) for access to archives and for assistance in having artefact photos produced for the paper. Moreover, we express our sincere thanks to Niels Lynnerup (Copenhagen University), Poul Otto Nielsen (Danish National Museum) and Kurt Gron (Durham University) for useful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.Funder: Riksbankens Jubileumsfond; funder-id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004472; Grant(s): M16-0455:1Funder: FP7 People: Marie-Curie Actions; funder-id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011264; Grant(s): 300554The lethally maltreated body of Vittrup Man was deposited in a Danish bog, probably as part of a ritualised sacrifice. It happened between c. 3300 and 3100 cal years BC, i.e., during the period of the local farming-based Funnel Beaker Culture. In terms of skull morphological features, he differs from the majority of the contemporaneous farmers found in Denmark, and associates with hunter-gatherers, who inhabited Scandinavia during the previous millennia. His skeletal remains were selected for transdisciplinary analysis to reveal his life-history in terms of a population historical perspective. We report the combined results of an integrated set of genetic, isotopic, physical anthropological and archaeological analytical approaches. Strontium signature suggests a foreign birthplace that could be in Norway or Sweden. In addition, enamel oxygen isotope values indicate that as a child he lived in a colder climate, i.e., to the north of the regions inhabited by farmers. Genomic data in fact demonstrates that he is closely related to Mesolithic humans known from Norway and Sweden. Moreover, dietary stable isotope analyses on enamel and bone collagen demonstrate a fisher-hunter way of life in his childhood and a diet typical of farmers later on. Such a variable life-history is also reflected by proteomic analysis of hardened organic deposits on his teeth, indicating the consumption of forager food (seal, whale and marine fish) as well as farmer food (sheep/goat). From a dietary isotopic transect of one of his teeth it is shown that his transfer between societies of foragers and farmers took place near to the end of his teenage years.</jats:p

AMS dates and associated dietary carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios for human and cattle bones from the Vittrup river mire.

AMS dates and associated dietary carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios for human and cattle bones from the Vittrup river mire.</p

Dietary and genetic characteristics of humans from the Funnel Beaker epoch in Denmark for which there is a genomic profile.

Individuals with a foreign genetic signature are marked in colour. All others (grey) have a predominantly European Farmer-derived genetic signature. For the individuals to the right of the dashed line at δ13C = -20‰, sea food was probably a regular part of their diet. Individuals to the left of the line, such as Vittrup Man, consumed dominantly terrestrial sources. Data from [1].</p

Polygenic trait predictions for the Svinninge Vejle individual (figure computed using polygenic scores obtained from [1]).

A: Polygenic scores for the Danish samples ordered chronologically, for four traits of interest: hair colour, basal metabolic rate (BMR), height and skin colour. B: Probability of having blue vs. brown vs. intermediate eye colour (green/hazel/grey). The Svinninge Vejle individual is highlighted via inserted probability values. The error bars denote 95% credible intervals.</p