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 I. Bos, Susanne Nordenfelt, Heng Li, Cesare De Filippo, Kay Prüfer, Susanna SawyerCosimo Posth, Wolfgang Haak, Fredrik Hallgren, Elin Fornander, Nadin Rohland, Dominique Delsate, Michael Francken, Jean Michel Guinet, Joachim Wahl, George Ayodo, Hamza A. Babiker, Graciela Bailliet, Elena Balanovska, Oleg Balanovsky, Ramiro Barrantes, Gabriel Bedoya, Haim Ben-Ami, Judit Bene, Fouad Berrada, Claudio M. Bravi, Francesca Brisighelli, George B.J. Busby, Francesco Cali, Mikhail Churnosov, David E.C. Cole, Daniel Corach, Larissa Damba, George Van Driem, Stanislav Dryomov, Jean Michel Dugoujon, Sardana A. Fedorova, Irene Gallego Romero, Marina Gubina, Michael Hammer, Brenna M. Henn, Tor Hervig, Ugur Hodoglugil, Aashish R. Jha, Sena Karachanak-Yankova, Rita Khusainova, Elza Khusnutdinova, Rick Kittles, Toomas Kivisild, William Klitz, Vaidutis Kučinskas, Alena Kushniarevich, Leila Laredj, Sergey Litvinov, Theologos Loukidis, Robert W. Mahley, Béla Melegh, Ene Metspalu, Julio Molina, Joanna Mountain, Klemetti Näkkäläjärvi, Desislava Nesheva, Thomas Nyambo, Ludmila Osipova, Jüri Parik, Fedor Platonov, Olga Posukh, Valentino Romano, Francisco Rothhammer, Igor Rudan, Ruslan Ruizbakiev, Hovhannes Sahakyan, Antti Sajantila, Antonio Salas, Elena B. Starikovskaya, Ayele Tarekegn, Draga Toncheva, Shahlo Turdikulova, Ingrida Uktveryte, Olga Utevska, René Vasquez, Mercedes Villena, Mikhail Voevoda, Cheryl A. Winkler, Levon Yepiskoposyan, Pierre Zalloua, Tatijana Zemunik, Alan Cooper, Cristian Capelli, Mark G. Thomas, Andres Ruiz-Linares, Sarah A. Tishkoff, Lalji Singh, Kumarasamy Thangaraj, Richard Villems, David Comas, Rem Sukernik, Mait Metspalu, Matthias Meyer, Evan E. Eichler, Joachim Burger, Montgomery Slatkin, Svante Pääbo, Janet Kelso, David Reich*, Johannes Krause

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

839 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We sequenced the genomes of a ∼7,000-year-old farmer from Germany and eight ∼8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden. We analysed these and other ancient genomes1-4 with 2,345 contemporary humans to show that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians3, who contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and early European farmers, who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harboured west European hunter-gatherer related ancestry. We model these populations' deep relationships and show that early European farmers had ∼44% ancestry from a 'basal Eurasian' population that split before the diversification of other non-African lineages.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)409-413
Number of pages5
JournalNature
Volume513
Issue number7518
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 18 2014

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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