Journal article
Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia
University of Copenhagen1
University of Gothenburg2
Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark3
Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark4
Metagenomics, Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark5
Lund University6
National Museum of Denmark7
Integrative Systems Biology, Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark8
The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000-1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia.
We show that the Bronze Age was a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacements, responsible for shaping major parts of present-day demographic structure in both Europe and Asia. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesized spread of Indo-European languages during the Early Bronze Age.
We also demonstrate that light skin pigmentation in Europeans was already present at high frequency in the Bronze Age, but not lactose tolerance, indicating a more recent onset of positive selection on lactose tolerance than previously thought.
Language: | English |
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Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group UK |
Year: | 2015 |
Pages: | 167-172 |
Journal subtitle: | International Weekly Journal of Science |
ISSN: | 14764687 , 00280836 , 15461718 and 10614036 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1038/nature14507 |
ORCIDs: | 0000-0003-2818-8319 , 0000-0002-6743-0270 , 0000-0002-3081-3702 , 0000-0002-2576-2429 , 0000-0002-7771-5376 , 0000-0003-3936-1850 , 0000-0003-0316-5866 , 0000-0002-7081-6748 and Rasmussen, Simon |