Ancient DNA from an Early Neolithic Iberian population supports a pioneer colonization by first farmers

The Neolithic transition has been widely debated particularly regarding the extent to which this revolution implied a demographic expansion from the Near East. We attempted to shed some light on this process in northeastern Iberia by combining ancient DNA (aDNA) data from Early Neolithic settlers an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Molecular ecology 2012-01, Vol.21 (1), p.45-56
Main Authors: GAMBA, C., FERNÁNDEZ, E., TIRADO, M., DEGUILLOUX, M. F., PEMONGE, M. H., UTRILLA, P., EDO, M., MOLIST, M., RASTEIRO, R., CHIKHI, L., ARROYO-PARDO, E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture - history
ancient DNA
Archaeology
Archaeology and Prehistory
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
DNA, Mitochondrial - genetics
DNA, Mitochondrial - history
Farmers
Genetic Drift
Haplotypes - genetics
History, Ancient
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Iberian Peninsula
Middle East
mitochondrial DNA
Neolithic
Phylogeography - history
Spain
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Summary:The Neolithic transition has been widely debated particularly regarding the extent to which this revolution implied a demographic expansion from the Near East. We attempted to shed some light on this process in northeastern Iberia by combining ancient DNA (aDNA) data from Early Neolithic settlers and published DNA data from Middle Neolithic and modern samples from the same region. We successfully extracted and amplified mitochondrial DNA from 13 human specimens, found at three archaeological sites dated back to the Cardial culture in the Early Neolithic (Can Sadurní and Chaves) and to the Late Early Neolithic (Sant Pau del Camp). We found that haplogroups with a low frequency in modern populations—N* and X1—are found at higher frequencies in our Early Neolithic population (∼31%). Genetic differentiation between Early and Middle Neolithic populations was significant (FST∼0.13, P 
ISSN:0962-1083
1365-294X
DOI:10.1111/j.1365-294X.2011.05361.x