TY  - JOUR
A1  - González-Fortes, Gloria M.
A1  - Jones, Eppie R.
A1  - Lightfoot, Emma
A1  - Bonsall, Clive
A1  - Lazar, Catalin
A1  - Dolores Garralda, Maria
A1  - Drak, Labib
A1  - Siska, Veronika
A1  - Simalcsik, Angela
A1  - Boroneant, Adina
A1  - Vidal Romani, Juan Ramon
A1  - Vaqueiro Rodriguez, Marcos
A1  - Arias, Pablo
A1  - Pinhasi, Ron
A1  - Manica, Andrea
A1  - Hofreiter, Michael
T1  - Paleogenomic Evidence for Multi-generational Mixing between Neolithic Farmers and Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherers in the Lower Danube Basin
JF  - Current biology
N2  - The transition from hunting and gathering to farming involved profound cultural and technological changes. In Western and Central Europe, these changes occurred rapidly and synchronously after the arrival of early farmers of Anatolian origin [1-3], who largely replaced the local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers [1, 4-6]. Further east, in the Baltic region, the transition was gradual, with little or no genetic input from incoming farmers [7]. Here we use ancient DNA to investigate the relationship between hunter-gatherers and farmers in the Lower Danube basin, a geographically intermediate area that is characterized by a rapid Neolithic transition but also by the presence of archaeological evidence that points to cultural exchange, and thus possible admixture, between hunter-gatherers and farmers. We recovered four human paleogenomes (1.13 to 4.13 coverage) from Romania spanning a time transect between 8.8 thousand years ago (kya) and 5.4 kya and supplemented them with two Mesolithic genomes (1.73- and 5.33) from Spain to provide further context on the genetic background of Mesolithic Europe. Our results show major Western hunter-gatherer (WHG) ancestry in a Romanian Eneolithic sample with a minor, but sizeable, contribution from Anatolian farmers, suggesting multiple admixture events between hunter-gatherers and farmers. Dietary stableisotope analysis of this sample suggests a mixed terrestrial/ aquatic diet. Our results provide support for complex interactions among hunter-gatherers and farmers in the Danube basin, demonstrating that in some regions, demic and cultural diffusion were not mutually exclusive, but merely the ends of a continuum for the process of Neolithization.
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.05.023
SN  - 0960-9822
SN  - 1879-0445
VL  - 27
SP  - 1801
EP  - +
PB  - Cell Press
CY  - Cambridge
ER  -