The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations

Florian Clemente, Martina Unterlaender, Olga Dolgova, Carlos Eduardo G. Amorim, Francisco Coroado-Santos, Samuel Neuenschwander, Elissavet Ganiatsou, Diana I. Cruz Davalos, Lucas Anchieri, Frederic Michaud, Laura Winkelbach, Jens Bloecher, Yami Ommar Arizmendi Cardenas, Barbara Sousa da Mota, Eleni Kalliga, Angelos Souleles, Ioannis Kontopoulos, Georgia Karamitrou-Mentessidi, Olga Philaniotou, Adamantios SampsonDimitra Theodorou, Metaxia Tsipopoulou, Ioannis Akamatis, Paul Halstead, Kostas Kotsakis, Dushka Urem-Kotsou, Diamantis Panagiotopoulos, Christina Ziota, Sevasti Triantaphyllou, Olivier Delaneau, Jeffrey D. Jensen, J. Victor Moreno-Mayar, Joachim Burger, Vitor C. Sousa, Oscar Lao, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Christina Papageorgopoulou

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

The Cycladic, the Minoan, and the Helladic (Mycenaean) cultures define the Bronze Age (BA) of Greece. Urbanism, complex social structures, craft and agricultural specialization, and the earliest forms of writing characterize this iconic period. We sequenced six Early to Middle BA whole genomes, along with 11 mitochondrial genomes, sampled from the three BA cultures of the Aegean Sea. The Early BA (EBA) genomes are homogeneous and derive most of their ancestry from Neolithic Aegeans, contrary to earlier hypotheses that the Neolithic- EBA cultural transition was due to massive population turnover. EBA Aegeans were shaped by relatively small-scale migration from East of the Aegean, as evidenced by the Caucasus-related ancestry also detected in Anatolians. In contrast, Middle BA (MBA) individuals of northern Greece differ from EBA populations in showing similar to 50% Pontic-Caspian Steppe-related ancestry, dated at ca. 2,600-2,000 BCE. Such gene flow events during the MBA contributed toward shaping present-day Greek genomes.

Original languageEnglish
Article number21
JournalCell
Volume184
Issue number10
Pages (from-to)2565-2586
Number of pages43
ISSN0092-8674
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Keywords

  • SINGLE-NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHISM
  • LACTASE-PERSISTENCE PHENOTYPE
  • INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES
  • SKIN COLOR PREDICTION
  • BRONZE-AGE
  • SEQUENCE ALIGNMENT
  • PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS
  • POPULATION-STRUCTURE
  • LACTOSE DIGESTION
  • HIRISPLEX SYSTEM

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