Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans

Iosif Lazaridis; Nick Patterson; Alissa Mittnik; Gabriel Renaud; Swapan Mallick; Karola Kirsanow; Peter H. Sudmant; Joshua G. Schraiber; Sergi Castellano; Mark Lipson; Bonnie Berger; Christos Economou; Ruth Bollongino; Qiaomei Fu; Kirsten Bos; Susanne Nordenfelt; Heng Li; Cesare de Filippo; Kay Prüfer; Susanna Sawyer; Cosimo Posth; Wolfgang Haak; Fredrik Hallgren; Elin Fornander; Nadin Rohland; Dominique Delsate; Michael Francken; Jean-Michel Guinet; Joachim Wahl; George Ayodo

doi:10.1038/nature13673

GeneticsNatureSep 17, 2014

Peer-reviewed journal article

Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans

Iosif Lazaridis iD, Nick Patterson, Alissa Mittnik iD, Gabriel Renaud iD, Swapan Mallick iD, Karola Kirsanow, Peter H. Sudmant, Joshua G. Schraiber, Sergi Castellano, Mark Lipson iD, Bonnie Berger, Christos Economou, Ruth Bollongino, Qiaomei Fu iD, Kirsten Bos, Susanne Nordenfelt, Heng Li iD, Cesare de Filippo iD, Kay Prüfer iD, Susanna Sawyer iD, Cosimo Posth iD, Wolfgang Haak iD, Fredrik Hallgren iD, Elin Fornander, Nadin Rohland iD, , Claudio M.

Abstract

We sequenced genomes from a [~]7,000 year old early farmer from Stuttgart in Germany, an [~]8,000 year old hunter-gatherer from Luxembourg, and seven [~]8,000 year old hunter-gatherers from southern Sweden. We analyzed these data together with other ancient genomes and 2,345 contemporary humans to show that the great majority of present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: West European Hunter-Gatherers (WHG), who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; Ancient North Eurasians (ANE), who were most closely related to Upper Paleolithic Siberians and contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and Early European Farmers (EEF), who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harbored WHG-related ancestry. We model these populations deep relationships and show that EEF had [~]44% ancestry from a \"Basal Eurasian\" lineage that split prior to the diversification of all other non-African lineages.

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