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Upper Mesopotamia played a key role in the Neolithic Transition in Southwest Asia through
marked innovations in symbolism, technology, and foodways. We present thirteen ancient
genomes (c.8500-7500 cal BCE) from Pre-Pottery Neolithic Çayönü in the Tigris basin together
with bioarchaeological and material culture data.Our findings reveal that Çayönü was a
genetically diverse population, carrying a mixed ancestry from western and eastern Fertile
Crescent, and that the community received immigrants. Our results further suggest that the
community was organised along biological family lines. We document bodily interventions such
as head-shaping and cauterization among the individuals examined, reflecting Çayönü’s cultural
ingenuity. Finally, we identify Upper Mesopotamia as the likely source of eastern gene flow into
Neolithic Anatolia,inline with material culture evidence.We hypothesise that Upper
Mesopotamia’s cultural dynamism during the Neolithic Transition was the product not only of its
fertile lands but also of its inter regional demographic connections.
[...]
Results and Discussion
We studied a total of 33 human remains from Çayönü (Fig. 1A, B, Supplementary Table 2).
These were mainly found as subfloor burials located inside or within the proximity of six Pre-
Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) buildings (Table S1). We screened 33 aDNA libraries by shotgun
sequencing, which revealed endogenous DNA proportions varying between 0.04% and 5%
(median = 0.2%, Fig. S1). This was lower than aDNA preservation in a contemporaneous Central
Anatolian settlement, Aşıklı (median = 1.4%, Wilcoxon rank sum test p < 0.05), but comparable
to another Central Anatolian site, Boncuklu (median = 0.1%, Wilcoxon rank sum test p > 0.05,
Fig. S2).
Libraries from 14 individuals were chosen for deeper sequencing (Methods), from which we
generated shotgun genomes with depths ranging from 0.016x to 0.49x. (Fig. S1, Supplementary
Table 2). High rates of post-mortem damage (PMD) accumulation at read ends, short average
fragment sizes (49-60 bps, median = 51.4 bps), and mitochondrial haplotype-based estimates
suggested authenticity of all 14 libraries (Methods) (Supplementary Table 2). With this data we
first estimated genetic kinship among all individual pairs (Methods). Two samples, both identified
as female infants (cay018 and cay020), were genetically inferred to either belong to the same
individual or to be identical twins. Anthropological evaluation also showed that both petrouses
could belong to the same individual. We therefore merged their genomic data and treated this
merged data as representing a single individual, reducing our sample size to 13 individuals (6
adult females, 2 adult males, 3 sub-adult females, 2 sub-adult males). We further identified four
related pairs of 1stto 3rddegree (see below) and removed all but one individual among sets of
closely related individuals in population genetic analyses (Methods).
[...]
For more SEE:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...487v1.full.pdf
marked innovations in symbolism, technology, and foodways. We present thirteen ancient
genomes (c.8500-7500 cal BCE) from Pre-Pottery Neolithic Çayönü in the Tigris basin together
with bioarchaeological and material culture data.Our findings reveal that Çayönü was a
genetically diverse population, carrying a mixed ancestry from western and eastern Fertile
Crescent, and that the community received immigrants. Our results further suggest that the
community was organised along biological family lines. We document bodily interventions such
as head-shaping and cauterization among the individuals examined, reflecting Çayönü’s cultural
ingenuity. Finally, we identify Upper Mesopotamia as the likely source of eastern gene flow into
Neolithic Anatolia,inline with material culture evidence.We hypothesise that Upper
Mesopotamia’s cultural dynamism during the Neolithic Transition was the product not only of its
fertile lands but also of its inter regional demographic connections.
[...]
Results and Discussion
We studied a total of 33 human remains from Çayönü (Fig. 1A, B, Supplementary Table 2).
These were mainly found as subfloor burials located inside or within the proximity of six Pre-
Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) buildings (Table S1). We screened 33 aDNA libraries by shotgun
sequencing, which revealed endogenous DNA proportions varying between 0.04% and 5%
(median = 0.2%, Fig. S1). This was lower than aDNA preservation in a contemporaneous Central
Anatolian settlement, Aşıklı (median = 1.4%, Wilcoxon rank sum test p < 0.05), but comparable
to another Central Anatolian site, Boncuklu (median = 0.1%, Wilcoxon rank sum test p > 0.05,
Fig. S2).
Libraries from 14 individuals were chosen for deeper sequencing (Methods), from which we
generated shotgun genomes with depths ranging from 0.016x to 0.49x. (Fig. S1, Supplementary
Table 2). High rates of post-mortem damage (PMD) accumulation at read ends, short average
fragment sizes (49-60 bps, median = 51.4 bps), and mitochondrial haplotype-based estimates
suggested authenticity of all 14 libraries (Methods) (Supplementary Table 2). With this data we
first estimated genetic kinship among all individual pairs (Methods). Two samples, both identified
as female infants (cay018 and cay020), were genetically inferred to either belong to the same
individual or to be identical twins. Anthropological evaluation also showed that both petrouses
could belong to the same individual. We therefore merged their genomic data and treated this
merged data as representing a single individual, reducing our sample size to 13 individuals (6
adult females, 2 adult males, 3 sub-adult females, 2 sub-adult males). We further identified four
related pairs of 1stto 3rddegree (see below) and removed all but one individual among sets of
closely related individuals in population genetic analyses (Methods).
[...]
For more SEE:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...487v1.full.pdf