Project description:The demographic history of East-Central Europe after the Neolithic period remains poorly explored, despite this region being on the confluence of various ecological zones and cultural entities. Here, the descendants of societies associated with steppe pastoralists form Early Bronze Age were followed by Middle Bronze Age populations displaying unique characteristics. Particularly, the predominance of collective burials, the scale of which, was previously seen only in the Neolithic. The extent to which this re-emergence of older traditions is a result of genetic shift or social changes in the MBA is a subject of debate. Here by analysing 91 newly generated genomes from Bronze Age individuals from present Poland and Ukraine, we discovered that Middle Bronze Age populations were formed by an additional admixture event involving a population with relatively high proportions of genetic component associated with European hunter-gatherers and that their social structure was based on, primarily patrilocal, multigenerational kin-groups.
Project description:Medieval era encounters of nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe and largely sedentary East Europeans had a variety of demographic and cultural consequences. Amongst these outcomes was the emergence of the Lipka Tatars - a Slavic-speaking Sunni-Muslim ethno-religious minority residing in modern Belarus, Lithuania and Poland, whose ancestors arrived in these territories via several migration waves, mainly from the Golden Horde. Our results show that Belarusian Lipka Tatars share a substantial part of their gene pool with Europeans as indicated by their Y-chromosomal, mitochondrial DNA and autosomal variation. Nevertheless, Belarusian Lipkas still retain a strong genetic signal of their nomadic ancestry, witnessed by the presence of common Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA variants as well as autosomal segments identical by descent between Lipkas and East Eurasians from temperate and northern regions. Hence, we document Lipka Tatars as a unique example of former Medieval migrants into Central Europe, who became sedentary, changed language to Slavic, yet preserved their faith and retained, both uni- and bi-parentally, a clear genetic echo of a complex population interplay throughout the Eurasian Steppe Belt, extending from Central Europe to northern China.
Project description:Medieval era encounters of nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe and largely sedentary East Europeans had a variety of demographic and cultural consequences. Amongst these outcomes was the emergence of the Lipka Tatars - a Slavic-speaking Sunni-Muslim ethno-religious minority residing in modern Belarus, Lithuania and Poland, whose ancestors arrived in these territories via several migration waves, mainly from the Golden Horde. Our results show that Belarusian Lipka Tatars share a substantial part of their gene pool with Europeans as indicated by their Y-chromosomal, mitochondrial DNA and autosomal variation. Nevertheless, Belarusian Lipkas still retain a strong genetic signal of their nomadic ancestry, witnessed by the presence of common Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA variants as well as autosomal segments identical by descent between Lipkas and East Eurasians from temperate and northern regions. Hence, we document Lipka Tatars as a unique example of former Medieval migrants into Central Europe, who became sedentary, changed language to Slavic, yet preserved their faith and retained, both uni- and bi-parentally, a clear genetic echo of a complex population interplay throughout the Eurasian Steppe Belt, extending from Central Europe to northern China. 6 samples were analysed with the Illumina platform HumanOmniExpress-24 v1.0 BeadChip and are described herein. Please note that the submitted information does not compromise participant privacy and is in accord with the original consent in addition to all applicable laws, regulations, and institutional policies. The submitter verified that there are no privacy concerns and that our human data can be open access.
Project description:Gendered burial practices that differentiate between men and women by the way the body was placed were used over large parts of Central Europe in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (c. 2900−1600 BC). The differentiation of bodies placed on the left/right side in opposite orientation was extended to children, but until recently, it was difficult to confirm if the biological sex of the children matched the classification as men and women. We applied nanoflow liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (nanoLC-MS/MS) to identify sex-specific peptides in human tooth enamel in 75 children buried at one of the largest Early Bronze Age cemeteries in Europe, Franzhausen I, Austria, 70 of which produced reliable results. The study confirmed that the sex of the children corresponds to the gendered body position in 98.4 % of cases. For burials in which the gendered sidedness and orientation are not internally consistent with the male or female pattern, we found that the sidedness of the body corresponds to the sex of the children rather than the orientation.
Project description:Recent improvements in the analysis ancient biomolecules from human remains and associated dental calculus have provided new insights into the prehistoric diet and past genetic diversity of our species. Here we present a “multi-omics” study, integrating genomic and proteomic analyses of two post-Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) individuals from San Teodoro cave (Italy), to reconstruct their lifestyle and the post-LGM resettlement of Europe. Our analyses show genetic homogeneity in Sicily during the Palaeolithic, representing a hitherto unknown Italian genetic lineage within the previously identified “Villabruna cluster”. We argue that this lineage took refuge in Italy during the LGM, followed by a subsequent spread to central-western Europe. Analyses of dental calculus using genomics and proteomics showed a similar oral microbiome composition as Neandertals, but distinct from later foragers and farmers, revealing also a diet based on mammals, fish and plants. Our results demonstrate the power of using a multi-omics approach in the study of prehistoric human populations.
Project description:In Europe, protecting the genetic diversity of Apis mellifera is usually perceived in the context of limiting the spread of the evolutionary C-lineage within the original range of the M-lineage. However, due to climate change and large-scale ongoing movement of breeding individuals, the expansion of bees from the African A-lineage could represent another threat. This issue has not yet been investigated in detail, although A-mitotypes occur in South-West and South Europe due to natural gene flow. Here, we determine the diversity of mtDNA in honey bees from East-Central Europe. We sequenced the COI-COII region in 427 bees sampled along two 900 km transects (17.5° N and 23° E). We found that 1.64% of bees (95% CI: 0.66-3.35 %) had A-mitotypes. It is unlikely that their presence in the area resulted from natural migration but instead human driven introductions of hybrids of African ancestry. This expansion deserves more attention, as it may contribute to the dissemination of undesirable traits, parasites and diseases.