TY - JOUR
T1 - Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons
AU - Martiniano, Rui
AU - Caffell, Anwen
AU - Holst, Malin
AU - Hunter-Mann, Kurt
AU - Montgomery, Janet
AU - Müldner, Gundula
AU - McLaughlin, Russell L
AU - Teasdale, Matthew David
AU - van Rheenen, Wouter
AU - Veldink, Jan H
AU - van den Berg, Leonard H
AU - Hardiman, Orla
AU - Carroll, Maureen
AU - Roskams, Steve
AU - Oxley, John
AU - Morgan, Colleen
AU - Thomas, Mark G
AU - Barnes, Ian
AU - McDonnell, Christine
AU - Collins, Matthew J
AU - Bradley, Daniel G
N1 - This content is made available by the publisher under a Creative Commons CC BY Licence
PY - 2016/1/19
Y1 - 2016/1/19
N2 - The purported migrations that have formed the peoples of Britain have been the focus of generations of scholarly controversy. However, this has not benefited from direct analyses of ancient genomes. Here we report nine ancient genomes (∼1 ×) of individuals from northern Britain: seven from a Roman era York cemetery, bookended by earlier Iron-Age and later Anglo-Saxon burials. Six of the Roman genomes show affinity with modern British Celtic populations, particularly Welsh, but significantly diverge from populations from Yorkshire and other eastern English samples. They also show similarity with the earlier Iron-Age genome, suggesting population continuity, but differ from the later Anglo-Saxon genome. This pattern concords with profound impact of migrations in the Anglo-Saxon period. Strikingly, one Roman skeleton shows a clear signal of exogenous origin, with affinities pointing towards the Middle East, confirming the cosmopolitan character of the Empire, even at its northernmost fringes.
AB - The purported migrations that have formed the peoples of Britain have been the focus of generations of scholarly controversy. However, this has not benefited from direct analyses of ancient genomes. Here we report nine ancient genomes (∼1 ×) of individuals from northern Britain: seven from a Roman era York cemetery, bookended by earlier Iron-Age and later Anglo-Saxon burials. Six of the Roman genomes show affinity with modern British Celtic populations, particularly Welsh, but significantly diverge from populations from Yorkshire and other eastern English samples. They also show similarity with the earlier Iron-Age genome, suggesting population continuity, but differ from the later Anglo-Saxon genome. This pattern concords with profound impact of migrations in the Anglo-Saxon period. Strikingly, one Roman skeleton shows a clear signal of exogenous origin, with affinities pointing towards the Middle East, confirming the cosmopolitan character of the Empire, even at its northernmost fringes.
U2 - 10.1038/ncomms10326
DO - 10.1038/ncomms10326
M3 - Article
C2 - 26783717
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 7
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
M1 - 10326
ER -