Early farmers from across Europe directly descended from Neolithic Aegeans

Farming and sedentism first appeared in southwestern Asia during the early Holocene and later spread to neighboring regions, including Europe, along multiple dispersal routes. Conspicuous uncertainties remain about the relative roles of migration, cultural diffusion, and admixture with local foragers in the early Neolithization of Europe. Here we present paleogenomic data for five Neolithic individuals from northern Greece and northwestern Turkey spanning the time and region of the earliest spread of farming into Europe. We use a novel approach to recalibrate raw reads and call genotypes from ancient DNA and observe striking genetic similarity both among Aegean early farmers and with those from across Europe. Our study demonstrates a direct genetic link between Mediterranean and Central European early farmers and those of Greece and Anatolia, extending the European Neolithic migratory chain all the way back to southwestern Asia

Ancient mitochondrial diversity reveals population homogeneity in Neolithic Greece and identifies population dynamics along the Danubian expansion axis

The aim of the study is to investigate mitochondrial diversity in Neolithic Greece and its relation to hunter-gatherers and farmers who populated the Danubian Neolithic expansion axis. We sequenced 42 mitochondrial palaeogenomes from Greece and analysed them together with European set of 328 mtDNA sequences dating from the Early to the Final Neolithic and 319 modern sequences. To test for population continuity through time in Greece, we use an original structured population continuity test that simulates DNA from different periods by explicitly considering the spatial and temporal dynamics of populations. We explore specific scenarios of the mode and tempo of the European Neolithic expansion along the Danubian axis applying spatially explicit simulations coupled with Approximate Bayesian Computation. We observe a striking genetic homogeneity for the maternal line throughout the Neolithic in Greece whereas population continuity is rejected between the Neolithic and present-day Greeks. Along the Danubian expansion axis, our best-fitting scenario supports a substantial decrease in mobility and an increasing local hunter-gatherer contribution to the gene-pool of farmers following the initial rapid Neolithic expansion. Οur original simulation approach models key demographic parameters rather than inferring them from fragmentary data leading to a better understanding of this important process in European prehistory

The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations

The Cycladic, the Minoan, and the Helladic (Mycenaean) cultures define the Bronze Age (BA) of Greece. Urbanism, complex social structures, craft and agricultural specialization, and the earliest forms of writing characterize this iconic period. We sequenced six Early to Middle BA whole genomes, along with 11 mitochondrial genomes, sampled from the three BA cultures of the Aegean Sea. The Early BA (EBA) genomes are homogeneous and derive most of their ancestry from Neolithic Aegeans, contrary to earlier hypotheses that the Neolithic-EBA cultural transition was due to massive population turnover. EBA Aegeans were shaped by relatively small-scale migration from East of the Aegean, as evidenced by the Caucasus-related ancestry also detected in Anatolians. In contrast, Middle BA (MBA) individuals of northern Greece differ from EBA populations in showing ∼50% Pontic-Caspian Steppe-related ancestry, dated at ca. 2,600-2,000 BCE. Such gene flow events during the MBA contributed toward shaping present-day Greek genomes.We thank the INCD (https://incd.pt/) for use of their computing infrastructure, which is funded by FCT and FEDER ( 01/SAICT/2016 022153 ).C.P., E.G., A.S., L.W., and J. Burger acknowledge the support of the European Union and the General Secretariat of Research and Innovation-GSRI, Ministry of Development & Investments in Greece, and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research-BMBF in Germany under the Bilateral Cooperation Program Greece – Germany 2017 (project BIOMUSE-0195 ). O.L. and O. Dolgova acknowledge the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation to the EMBL partnership, Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa, CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Generalitat de Catalunya through Departament de Salut and Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement, as well as co-financing with funds from the European Regional Development Fund by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation corresponding to the Programa Operativo FEDER Plurirregional de España (POPE) 2014-2020, and by the Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca, Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement of the Generalitat de Catalunya corresponding to the Programa Operatiu FEDER de Catalunya 2014-2020. F.C., C.E.G.A., S.N., D.I.C.D., L.A., B.S.d.M., Y.O.A.C., F.M., J.V.M.-M., and A.-S.M. were supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SFNS) and a European Research Council (ERC) grant to A.-S.M. M.U., S.T., D.U.-K., and C.P. were co-financed by the EU Social Fund and the Greek national funds research funding program ARISTEIA II ( project-3461 ). C.P., E.G., A.S., L.W., and J. Burger were co-financed by the Greek-German bilateral cooperation program 2017 (General Secreteriat for Research and Innovation, Ministry of Development and Investments, Greece, and Federal Ministry of Education and Research - BMBF, Germany) project BIOMUSE-0195 funded by the Operational Programme “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” (NSRF 2014-2020 ) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (EU Social Fund and European Regional Development Fund). E.K. was funded by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY). O. Delaneau is funded by a SNSF (project grant PP00P3_176977 ). V.C.S. was supported by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) through funds granted to cE3c ( UIDB/00329/2020 ) and individual grant CEECIND/02391/2017 . O.L. was supported by a Ramón y Cajal grant from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MEIC) (RYC-2013-14797), a PGC2018-098574-B-I00 (MEIC/FEDER) grant, and the support of Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya ( GRC 2017 SGR 937 ). O. Dolgova was supported by a PGC2018-098574-B-I00 (MEIC/FEDER) grant. J.D.J. was funded by National Institutes of Health grants R01GM135899 and R35GM13938