TY - BOOK
T1 - Ancient Steppe Genomics
AU - Damgaard, Peter de Barros
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - The field of archaeogenomics at population level exploded in 2015, a few months before thebeginning of this work. Clearly, the refining of methodological procedures which was continuedherein, now made it possible to access genome-wide information on past groups across the World– revolutionizing archaeological sciences, and resulting in intense debates across disciplines,urgently calling for an integrated approach to decipher and interpret human history. Most effortswere localised to Europe, making it clear that Europe’s trajectory was incredibly dynamic andtightly linked to the rest of the Eurasian continent, in particular through the steppe corridors - thevast flat-lands stretching from the Hungarians plains in the West, through Central Asia inpresent-day Kazakhstan, unto the Altai mountains, the Mongolian steppes, the Tian Shanmountains in present-day Kyrgyzstan and onto the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus, thus a corridorthat connected Europe, Southern Siberia, East and South Asia. In order to understand thedynamics of this enormous grass zone which laid ground to intensified war, trade and languagedispersal that formed today’s landscape, population and cultural diversity, we sequenced 207ancient human genomes to an average of ~1X coverage and 4 higher coverage genomes (~10 to25 X) of steppe pastoralists, nomads, warriors and surrounding groups, and analysed these in apopulation genetics framework, correlated with knowledge from horse genomes from key sitesand archaeological, historical and linguistical sciences. We evaluated and re-defined the so-called“steppe hypothesis” on the origins and dispersal of Indo-European languages, by casting light onextensive gaps of knowledge in the Eurasian Late Pre-history and History, by unfolding humandispersal patterns since the domestication of the horse ~5500 years ago in northern Kazakhstan,through the Middle to Late Bronze Age (4000-3000 years ago) where the advent of the spokedwheelchariot was coupled to the dispersal of Indo-European languages and in part to the originsof Hinduism in South Asia; onto the emergence of mounted nomad warriors - of both genders -in the Iron Age; and finally the dissemination of the Turkic languages across Central Asiathrough the installment of political systems called Khaganates that were implemented at thecollapse of the Hunnic Empire, which had itself overtaken the stateless organization of the IronAge Scythians. We then used genomic ancestries of dozens of past groups to track admixturefrom East Asia in a westward direction, and hereby characterized present-day Central Asiandiversity through the history of steppe nomadism and militarism up until the Medieval Times.
AB - The field of archaeogenomics at population level exploded in 2015, a few months before thebeginning of this work. Clearly, the refining of methodological procedures which was continuedherein, now made it possible to access genome-wide information on past groups across the World– revolutionizing archaeological sciences, and resulting in intense debates across disciplines,urgently calling for an integrated approach to decipher and interpret human history. Most effortswere localised to Europe, making it clear that Europe’s trajectory was incredibly dynamic andtightly linked to the rest of the Eurasian continent, in particular through the steppe corridors - thevast flat-lands stretching from the Hungarians plains in the West, through Central Asia inpresent-day Kazakhstan, unto the Altai mountains, the Mongolian steppes, the Tian Shanmountains in present-day Kyrgyzstan and onto the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus, thus a corridorthat connected Europe, Southern Siberia, East and South Asia. In order to understand thedynamics of this enormous grass zone which laid ground to intensified war, trade and languagedispersal that formed today’s landscape, population and cultural diversity, we sequenced 207ancient human genomes to an average of ~1X coverage and 4 higher coverage genomes (~10 to25 X) of steppe pastoralists, nomads, warriors and surrounding groups, and analysed these in apopulation genetics framework, correlated with knowledge from horse genomes from key sitesand archaeological, historical and linguistical sciences. We evaluated and re-defined the so-called“steppe hypothesis” on the origins and dispersal of Indo-European languages, by casting light onextensive gaps of knowledge in the Eurasian Late Pre-history and History, by unfolding humandispersal patterns since the domestication of the horse ~5500 years ago in northern Kazakhstan,through the Middle to Late Bronze Age (4000-3000 years ago) where the advent of the spokedwheelchariot was coupled to the dispersal of Indo-European languages and in part to the originsof Hinduism in South Asia; onto the emergence of mounted nomad warriors - of both genders -in the Iron Age; and finally the dissemination of the Turkic languages across Central Asiathrough the installment of political systems called Khaganates that were implemented at thecollapse of the Hunnic Empire, which had itself overtaken the stateless organization of the IronAge Scythians. We then used genomic ancestries of dozens of past groups to track admixturefrom East Asia in a westward direction, and hereby characterized present-day Central Asiandiversity through the history of steppe nomadism and militarism up until the Medieval Times.
UR - https://rex.kb.dk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=KGL01011932470&context=L&vid=NUI&search_scope=KGL&isFrbr=true&tab=default_tab&lang=da_DK
M3 - Ph.D. thesis
BT - Ancient Steppe Genomics
PB - Natural History Museum of Denmark, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen
ER -