Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain

Abstract

The roles of migration, admixture and acculturation in the European transition to farming have been debated for over 100 years. Genome-wide ancient DNA studies indicate predominantly Aegean ancestry for continental Neolithic farmers, but also variable admixture with local Users may view, print, copy, and download text and data-mine the content in such documents, for the purposes of academic research, subject always to the full Conditions of use:http://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/license.html#terms ✉ corresponding authors. *these authors contributed equally #these authors co-supervised the work Data availability—BAM files (a file per library, before re-aligning around InDels; see Supplementary Table 1) have been deposited at ENA under study accession PRJEB31249. Competing Interests Statement We confirm that none of the authors have a competing financial and/or non-financial interest in relation to the work described. Author Contributions I.B. and M.G.T conceived the project, and Y.D., S.B., Z.F., O.C. and T.B. contributed to the project design. S.B., Y.D., T.B., L.v.D, N.R., S.M., I.O., M.F., M.M., J.O., N.B., K.S., R.M., S.C. and S.W. generated and analysed data. I.B., M.G.T., Y.D., S.B., T.B., M.K., S.W., G.H., I.A., R.S., O.C., A.S., M.P.P., C.S. and D.R. contributed to the sampling strategy and the interpretation of results. I.B., M.G.T., Y.D., S.B. and T.B. wrote the paper, with contributions from all other authors. Brace et al. Page 2 Europe PMC Funders Author Manuscripts Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Neolithic cultures first appear in Britain ca. 4000 BCE, a millennium after they appear in adjacent areas of continental Europe. The pattern and process of this delayed British Neolithic transition remains unclear. We assembled genome-wide data from six Mesolithic and 67 Neolithic individuals found in Britain, dating from 8500-2500 BCE. Our analyses reveal persistent genetic affinities between Mesolithic British and Western European hunter-gatherers. We find overwhelming support for agriculture being introduced to Britain by incoming continental farmers, with small, geographically-structured levels of hunter-gatherer ancestry. Unlike other European Neolithic populations, we detect no resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry at any time during the Neolithic in Britain. Genetic affinities with Iberian Neolithic individuals indicate that British Neolithic people were mostly descended from Aegean farmers who followed the Mediterranean route of dispersal. We also infer considerable variation in pigmentation levels in Europe by ca. 6000 BCE.