Chinese officer & soldiers of the Northern & Southern dynasties Period (AD 386–589)

A representation of a Chinese officer, an infantryman and a cavalryman of the Northern and Southern dynasties Period (AD 386–589) from Liu Yonghua’s excellent book on the warriors of Imperial Eras China (copyright: Liu Yonghua).

The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia

Republication from biorxiv

 

doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/292581 

Abstract

The genetic formation of Central and South Asian populations has been unclear because of an absence of ancient DNA. To address this gap, we generated genome-wide data from 362 ancient individuals, including the first from eastern Iran, Turan (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), Bronze Age Kazakhstan, and South Asia. Our data reveal a complex set of genetic sources that ultimately combined to form the ancestry of South Asians today. We document a southward spread of genetic ancestry from the Eurasian Steppe, correlating with the archaeologically known expansion of pastoralist sites from the Steppe to Turan in the Middle Bronze Age (2300-1500 BCE). These Steppe communities mixed genetically with peoples of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) whom they encountered in Turan (primarily descendants of earlier agriculturalists of Iran), but there is no evidence that the main BMAC population contributed genetically to later South Asians. Instead, Steppe communities integrated farther south throughout the 2nd millennium BCE, and we show that they mixed with a more southern population that we document at multiple sites as outlier individuals exhibiting a distinctive mixture of ancestry related to Iranian agriculturalists and South Asian hunter-gathers.

Genetic data reveal contrasting sex bias in Neolithic and Bronze Age Eurasian migrations

Republication from PNAS

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Amy Goldberg, Torsten Günther, Noah A. Rosenberg, and Mattias Jakobsson

PNAS March 7, 2017 114 (10) 2657-2662; published ahead of print February 21, 2017

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Significance

Studies of differing female and male demographic histories on the basis of ancient genomes can provide insight into the social structures and cultural interactions during major events in human prehistory. We consider the sex-specific demography of two of the largest migrations in recent European prehistory. Using genome-wide ancient genetic data from multiple Eurasian populations spanning the last 10,000 years, we find no evidence of sex-biased migrations from Anatolia, despite the shift to patrilocality associated with the spread of farming. In contrast, we infer a massive male-biased migration from the steppe during the late Neolithic and Bronze Age. The contrasting patterns of sex-specific migration during these two migrations suggest that different sociocultural processes drove the two events.

Abstract

Dramatic events in human prehistory, such as the spread of agriculture to Europe from Anatolia and the late Neolithic/Bronze Age migration from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, can be investigated using patterns of genetic variation among the people who lived in those times. In particular, studies of differing female and male demographic histories on the basis of ancient genomes can provide information about complexities of social structures and cultural interactions in prehistoric populations.

Mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup L3 basic lineages migrated back to Africa from Asia around 70,000 years ago

Republication from biorxiv

Abstract

Background: After three decades of mtDNA studies on human evolution the only incontrovertible main result is the African origin of all extant modern humans. In addition, a southern coastal route has been relentlessly imposed to explain the Eurasian colonization of these African pioneers. Based on the age of macrohaplogroup L3, from which all maternal Eurasian and the majority of African lineages originated, that out-of-Africa event has been dated around 60-70 kya. On the opposite side, we have proposed a northern route through Central Asia across the Levant for that expansion. Consistent with the fossil record, we have dated it around 125 kya. To help bridge differences between the molecular and fossil record ages, in this article we assess the possibility that mtDNA macrohaplogroup L3 matured in Eurasia and returned to Africa as basic L3 lineages around 70 kya.

Admixture history and recent southern origins of Siberian populations

Republication from BioRxiv

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Fig.1. Admixture results for K=6 showing the approximate location of the populations  included in this study. The names of the populations are coloured according to their
linguistic affiliation as follows: red = Mongolic, blue = Turkic, dark green = North
Tungusic, light green = South Tungusic (Hezhen) and Manchu (Xibo), brown = Ugric,
orange = Samoyedic, black = Yenisseic, azure = Yukaghirs, maroon = Chukotko-
Kamchatkan, pink = Eskimo-Aleut, purple = Indo-European, teal = Sino-Tibetan and
Japonic. Where two subgroups are from the same geographic location, only one of the subgroups is shown (full results are presented in Fig.S1). Note that for reasons of space the location of the two distinct Yakut subgroups does not correspond to their true location. Each color indicates a different ancestry component referred to in the text as “(light) green” or European, “yellow” or Western Siberian, “blue” or Central Siberian, “pink” or Asian,  “red” or Far Eastern, “dark green” or Eskimo.

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Irina Pugach, Rostislav Matveev, Viktor Spitsyn, Sergey Makarov, Innokentiy Novgorodov, Vladimir Osakovsky, Mark Stoneking, Brigitte Pakendorf

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/018770

Now published in Molecular Biology And Evolution doi: 10.1093/molbev/msw055