@misc{GallegoLlorenteSarahJonesetal.2016, author = {Gallego-Llorente, Marcos and Sarah, Connell and Jones, Eppie R. and Merrett, Deborah C. and Jeon, Y. and Eriksson, Anders and Siska, Veronika and Gamba, Cristina and Meiklejohn, Christopher and Beyer, Robert and Jeon, Sungwon and Cho, Yun Sung and Hofreiter, Michael and Bhak, Jong and Manica, Andrea and Pinhasi, Ron}, title = {The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {952}, issn = {1866-8372}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-43935}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-439355}, pages = {9}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The agricultural transition profoundly changed human societies. We sequenced and analysed the first genome (1.39x) of an early Neolithic woman from Ganj Dareh, in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, a site with early evidence for an economy based on goat herding, ca. 10,000 BP. We show that Western Iran was inhabited by a population genetically most similar to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus, but distinct from the Neolithic Anatolian people who later brought food production into Europe. The inhabitants of Ganj Dareh made little direct genetic contribution to modern European populations, suggesting those of the Central Zagros were somewhat isolated from other populations of the Fertile Crescent. Runs of homozygosity are of a similar length to those from Neolithic farmers, and shorter than those of Caucasus and Western Hunter-Gatherers, suggesting that the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh did not undergo the large population bottleneck suffered by their northern neighbours. While some degree of cultural diffusion between Anatolia, Western Iran and other neighbouring regions is possible, the genetic dissimilarity between early Anatolian farmers and the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh supports a model in which Neolithic societies in these areas were distinct.}, language = {en} } @misc{MeyerPalkopoulouBalekaetal.2017, author = {Meyer, Matthias and Palkopoulou, Eleftheria and Baleka, Sina Isabelle and Stiller, Mathias and Penkman, Kirsty E. H. and Alt, Kurt W. and Ishida, Yasuko and Mania, Dietrich and Mallick, Swapan and Meijer, Tom and Meller, Harald and Nagel, Sarah and Nickel, Birgit and Ostritz, Sven and Rohland, Nadin and Schauer, Karol and Sch{\"u}ler, Tim and Roca, Alfred L. and Reich, David and Shapiro, Beth and Hofreiter, Michael}, title = {Palaeogenomes of Eurasian straight-tusked elephants challenge the current view of elephant evolution}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {790}, issn = {1866-8372}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-44013}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-440139}, pages = {14}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The straight-tusked elephants Palaeoloxodon spp. were widespread across Eurasia during the Pleistocene. Phylogenetic reconstructions using morphological traits have grouped them with Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), and many paleontologists place Palaeoloxodon within Elephas. Here, we report the recovery of full mitochondrial genomes from four and partial nuclear genomes from two P. antiquus fossils. These fossils were collected at two sites in Germany, Neumark-Nord and Weimar-Ehringsdorf, and likely date to interglacial periods similar to 120 and similar to 244 thousand years ago, respectively. Unexpectedly, nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analyses suggest that P. antiquus was a close relative of extant African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis). Species previously referred to Palaeoloxodon are thus most parsimoniously explained as having diverged from the lineage of Loxodonta, indicating that Loxodonta has not been constrained to Africa. Our results demonstrate that the current picture of elephant evolution is in need of substantial revision.}, language = {en} }