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

Burial practices and societies of bronze age in West Macedonia. The cemeteries of Koilada and Goules in Kozani

The aim of this thesis is to present the results of an excavation at two organized prehistoric cemeteries of the early and middle Bronze Age in the prefecture of Kozani. It is not a detailed publication of the finds but rather it focuses on the burial practices and the social formations which determine the treatment of the dead. The study of a total of 256 tombs attempts to present the basic principles which rule the socially accepted treatment of death in each cemetery. It does not mean to recreate the structure of each respective society, but to outline the different interpretation of each society as it appears in the context of the burial rituals. Furthermore it examines the likelihood that a variety of social strategies are used to redefine the roles and relations in the social reality. It ends with the historical considerations of the prehistoric burial practices in W. Macedonia.Στόχος της εργασίας είναι να παρουσιάσει τα αποτελέσματα της ανασκαφικής έρευνας σε δύο οργανωμένα προϊστορικά νεκροταφεία της ύστερης πρώιμης και της μέσης εποχής Χαλκού στο νομό Κοζάνης. Δεν αποτελεί αναλυτική δημοσίευση του υλικού, αλλά επικεντρώνεται στις ταφικές πρακτικές και κοινωνικές συνιστώσες, που επηρεάζουν τη μεταχείριση των νεκρών. Η μελέτη των 256 συνολικά τάφων επιχειρεί να αναδείξει τις βασικές αρχές, που διέπουν την κοινωνικά αποδεκτή αντιμετώπιση του θανάτου σε κάθε νεκροταφείο. Δεν φιλοδοξεί να ανασυστήσει τη δομή των αντίστοιχων κοινωνιών, αλλά να σκιαγραφήσει την ιδιαίτερη εκδοχή κάθε κοινωνίας, όπως προβάλλεται στο τελετουργικό πλαίσιο της ταφής. Διερευνά επίσης το ενδεχόμενο να ενεργοποιούνται ποικίλες στρατηγικές με στόχο τον επαναπροσδιορισμό ρόλων και σχέσεων στην κοινωνική πραγματικότητα. Καταλήγει με την ιστορική θεώρηση των προϊστορικών ταφικών πρακτικών στη Δ. Μακεδονία

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

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