Extensive farming in Estonia started through a sex-biased migration from the steppe

Lehti Saag; Liivi Varul; Christiana Lyn Scheib; Jesper Stenderup; Morten Erik Allentoft; Lauri Saag; Luca Pagani; Maere Reidla; Kristiina Tambets; Ene Metspalu; Aivar Kriiska; Eske Willerslev; Toomas Kivisild; Mait Metspalu

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.022

Extensive farming in Estonia started through a sex-biased migration from the steppe

Lehti Saag^*, Liivi Varul, Christiana Lyn Scheib, Jesper Stenderup, Morten Erik Allentoft, Lauri Saag, Luca Pagani, Maere Reidla, Kristiina Tambets, Ene Metspalu, Aivar Kriiska, Eske Willerslev, Toomas Kivisild, Mait Metspalu

^*Corresponding author for this work

48 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The transition from hunting and gathering to farming in Europe was brought upon by arrival of new people carrying novel material culture and genetic ancestry. The exact nature and scale of the transition—both material and genetic—varied in different parts of Europe [1–7]. Farming-based economies appear relatively late in Northeast Europe, and the extent to which they involve change in genetic ancestry is not fully understood due to the lack of relevant ancient DNA data. Here we present the results from new low-coverage whole-genome shotgun sequence data from five hunter-gatherers and five first farmers of Estonia whose remains date to 4,500 to 6,300 years before present. We find evidence of significant differences between the two groups in the composition of autosomal as well as mtDNA, X chromosome, and Y chromosome ancestries. We find that Estonian hunter-gatherers of Comb Ceramic culture are closest to Eastern hunter-gatherers, which is in contrast to earlier hunter-gatherers from the Baltics, who are close to Western hunter-gatherers [8, 9]. The Estonian first farmers of Corded Ware culture show high similarity in their autosomes with European hunter-gatherers, Steppe Eneolithic and Bronze Age populations, and European Late Neolithic/Bronze Age populations, while their X chromosomes are in addition equally closely related to European and Anatolian and Levantine early farmers. These findings suggest that the shift to intensive cultivation and animal husbandry in Estonia was triggered by the arrival of new people with predominantly Steppe ancestry but whose ancestors had undergone sex-specific admixture with early farmers with Anatolian ancestry.

Original language	English
Journal	Current Biology
Volume	27
Issue number	14
Pages (from-to)	2185-2193
Number of pages	9
ISSN	0960-9822
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.022
Publication status	Published - 24 Jul 2017

Keywords

aDNA
ancient DNA
Comb Ceramic culture
Corded Ware culture
farming
hunter-gatherers
migration
Neolithic
population genetics
shotgun sequencing

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10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.022

http://www.cell.com/article/S0960982217307248/pdf

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title = "Extensive farming in Estonia started through a sex-biased migration from the steppe",

abstract = "The transition from hunting and gathering to farming in Europe was brought upon by arrival of new people carrying novel material culture and genetic ancestry. The exact nature and scale of the transition—both material and genetic—varied in different parts of Europe [1–7]. Farming-based economies appear relatively late in Northeast Europe, and the extent to which they involve change in genetic ancestry is not fully understood due to the lack of relevant ancient DNA data. Here we present the results from new low-coverage whole-genome shotgun sequence data from five hunter-gatherers and five first farmers of Estonia whose remains date to 4,500 to 6,300 years before present. We find evidence of significant differences between the two groups in the composition of autosomal as well as mtDNA, X chromosome, and Y chromosome ancestries. We find that Estonian hunter-gatherers of Comb Ceramic culture are closest to Eastern hunter-gatherers, which is in contrast to earlier hunter-gatherers from the Baltics, who are close to Western hunter-gatherers [8, 9]. The Estonian first farmers of Corded Ware culture show high similarity in their autosomes with European hunter-gatherers, Steppe Eneolithic and Bronze Age populations, and European Late Neolithic/Bronze Age populations, while their X chromosomes are in addition equally closely related to European and Anatolian and Levantine early farmers. These findings suggest that the shift to intensive cultivation and animal husbandry in Estonia was triggered by the arrival of new people with predominantly Steppe ancestry but whose ancestors had undergone sex-specific admixture with early farmers with Anatolian ancestry.",

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author = "Lehti Saag and Liivi Varul and Scheib, {Christiana Lyn} and Jesper Stenderup and Allentoft, {Morten Erik} and Lauri Saag and Luca Pagani and Maere Reidla and Kristiina Tambets and Ene Metspalu and Aivar Kriiska and Eske Willerslev and Toomas Kivisild and Mait Metspalu",

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AU - Varul, Liivi

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AU - Stenderup, Jesper

AU - Allentoft, Morten Erik

AU - Saag, Lauri

AU - Pagani, Luca

AU - Reidla, Maere

AU - Tambets, Kristiina

AU - Metspalu, Ene

AU - Kriiska, Aivar

AU - Willerslev, Eske

AU - Kivisild, Toomas

AU - Metspalu, Mait

PY - 2017/7/24

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N2 - The transition from hunting and gathering to farming in Europe was brought upon by arrival of new people carrying novel material culture and genetic ancestry. The exact nature and scale of the transition—both material and genetic—varied in different parts of Europe [1–7]. Farming-based economies appear relatively late in Northeast Europe, and the extent to which they involve change in genetic ancestry is not fully understood due to the lack of relevant ancient DNA data. Here we present the results from new low-coverage whole-genome shotgun sequence data from five hunter-gatherers and five first farmers of Estonia whose remains date to 4,500 to 6,300 years before present. We find evidence of significant differences between the two groups in the composition of autosomal as well as mtDNA, X chromosome, and Y chromosome ancestries. We find that Estonian hunter-gatherers of Comb Ceramic culture are closest to Eastern hunter-gatherers, which is in contrast to earlier hunter-gatherers from the Baltics, who are close to Western hunter-gatherers [8, 9]. The Estonian first farmers of Corded Ware culture show high similarity in their autosomes with European hunter-gatherers, Steppe Eneolithic and Bronze Age populations, and European Late Neolithic/Bronze Age populations, while their X chromosomes are in addition equally closely related to European and Anatolian and Levantine early farmers. These findings suggest that the shift to intensive cultivation and animal husbandry in Estonia was triggered by the arrival of new people with predominantly Steppe ancestry but whose ancestors had undergone sex-specific admixture with early farmers with Anatolian ancestry.

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KW - Corded Ware culture

KW - farming

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KW - population genetics

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SP - 2185

EP - 2193

JO - Current Biology

JF - Current Biology

IS - 14

ER -

Extensive farming in Estonia started through a sex-biased migration from the steppe

Abstract

Keywords

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