Nature. 2016 Aug 25;536(7617):419-24. Epub 2016 Jul 25.

Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East.

Lazaridis I, Nadel D, Rollefson G, Merrett DC, Rohland N, Mallick S, Fernandes D, Novak M, Gamarra B, Sirak K, Connell S, Stewardson K, Harney E, Fu Q, Gonzalez-Fortes G, Jones ER, Roodenberg SA, Lengyel G, Bocquentin F, Gasparian B, Monge JM, Gregg M, Eshed V, Mizrahi AS, Meiklejohn C, Gerritsen F, Bejenaru L, Blüher M, Campbell A, Cavalleri G, Comas D, Froguel P, Gilbert E, Kerr SM, Kovacs P, Krause J, McGettigan D, Merrigan M, Merriwether DA, O'Reilly S, Richards MB, Semino O, Shamoon-Pour M, Stefanescu G, Stumvoll M, Tönjes A, Torroni A, Wilson JF, Yengo L, Hovhannisyan NA, Patterson N, Pinhasi R, Reich D.

Abstract

We report genome-wide ancient DNA from 44 ancient Near Easterners ranging in time between ~12,000 and 1,400 bc, from Natufian hunter-gatherers to Bronze Age farmers. We show that the earliest populations of the Near East derived around half their ancestry from a 'Basal Eurasian' lineage that had little if any Neanderthal admixture and that separated from other non-African lineages before their separation from each other. The first farmers of the southern Levant (Israel and Jordan) and Zagros Mountains (Iran) were strongly genetically differentiated, and each descended from local hunter-gatherers. By the time of the Bronze Age, these two populations and Anatolian-related farmers had mixed with each other and with the hunter-gatherers of Europe to greatly reduce genetic differentiation. The impact of the Near Eastern farmers extended beyond the Near East: farmers related to those of Anatolia spread westward into Europe; farmers related to those of the Levant spread southward into East Africa; farmers related to those of Iran spread northward into the Eurasian steppe; and people related to both the early farmers of Iran and to the pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe spread eastward into South Asia.

PMID:: 27459054
PMCID:: PMC5003663; [Available on 2017-02-25]
DOI:: 10.1038/nature19310

[Indexed for MEDLINE]

Free PMC Article

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Extended Data Figure 1

Principal components analysis of 991 present-day West Eurasians

The PCA analysis is performed on the same set of individuals as are reported in , using EIGENSOFT. Here, we color the samples by population (to highlight the present-day populations) instead of using grey points as in (where the goal is to highlight ancient samples).

Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East