Eight millennia of matrilineal genetic continuity in the South Caucasus

TY - JOUR

T1 - Eight millennia of matrilineal genetic continuity in the South Caucasus

AU - Margaryan, Ashot

AU - Derenko, Miroslava

AU - Hovhannisyan, Hrant

AU - Malyarchuk, Boris

AU - Heller, Rasmus

AU - Khachatryan, Zaruhi

AU - Avetisyan, Pavel

AU - Badalyan, Ruben

AU - Bobokhyan, Arsen

AU - Melikyan, Varduhi

AU - Sargsyan, Gagik

AU - Piliposyan, Ashot

AU - Simonyan, Hakob

AU - Mkrtchyan, Ruzan

AU - Denisova, Galina

AU - Yepiskoposyan, Levon

AU - Willerslev, Eske

AU - Allentoft, Morten Erik

PY - 2017/7/10

Y1 - 2017/7/10

N2 - The South Caucasus, situated between the Black and Caspian Seas, geographically links Europe with the Near East and has served as a crossroad for human migrations for many millennia [1–7]. Despite a vast archaeological record showing distinct cultural turnovers, the demographic events that shaped the human populations of this region is not known [8, 9]. To shed light on the maternal genetic history of the region, we analyzed the complete mitochondrial genomes of 52 ancient skeletons from present-day Armenia and Artsakh spanning 7,800 years and combined this dataset with 206 mitochondrial genomes of modern Armenians. We also included previously published data of seven neighboring populations (n = 482). Coalescence-based analyses suggest that the population size in this region rapidly increased after the Last Glacial Maximum ca. 18 kya. We find that the lowest genetic distance in this dataset is between modern Armenians and the ancient individuals, as also reflected in both network analyses and discriminant analysis of principal components. We used approximate Bayesian computation to test five different demographic scenarios explaining the formation of the modern Armenian gene pool. Despite well documented cultural shifts in the South Caucasus across this time period, our results strongly favor a genetic continuity model in the maternal gene pool. This has implications for interpreting prehistoric migration dynamics and cultural shifts in this part of the world.

AB - The South Caucasus, situated between the Black and Caspian Seas, geographically links Europe with the Near East and has served as a crossroad for human migrations for many millennia [1–7]. Despite a vast archaeological record showing distinct cultural turnovers, the demographic events that shaped the human populations of this region is not known [8, 9]. To shed light on the maternal genetic history of the region, we analyzed the complete mitochondrial genomes of 52 ancient skeletons from present-day Armenia and Artsakh spanning 7,800 years and combined this dataset with 206 mitochondrial genomes of modern Armenians. We also included previously published data of seven neighboring populations (n = 482). Coalescence-based analyses suggest that the population size in this region rapidly increased after the Last Glacial Maximum ca. 18 kya. We find that the lowest genetic distance in this dataset is between modern Armenians and the ancient individuals, as also reflected in both network analyses and discriminant analysis of principal components. We used approximate Bayesian computation to test five different demographic scenarios explaining the formation of the modern Armenian gene pool. Despite well documented cultural shifts in the South Caucasus across this time period, our results strongly favor a genetic continuity model in the maternal gene pool. This has implications for interpreting prehistoric migration dynamics and cultural shifts in this part of the world.

KW - ancient DNA

KW - Armenia

KW - genetic continuity

KW - mitogenomes

KW - mtDNA

KW - population genetics

KW - South Caucasus

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85021316237&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.cub.2017.05.087

DO - 10.1016/j.cub.2017.05.087

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 28669760

AN - SCOPUS:85021316237

SN - 0960-9822

VL - 27

SP - 2023

EP - 2028

JO - Current Biology

JF - Current Biology

IS - 13

ER -