The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe

Iosif Lazaridis, Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Ayşe Acar, Ayşen Açıkkol, Anagnostis Agelarakis, Levon Aghikyan, Uğur Akyüz, Desislava Andreeva, Gojko Andrijašević, Dragana Antonović, Ian Armit, Alper Atmaca, Pavel Avetisyan, Ahmet İhsan Aytek, Krum Bacvarov, Ruben Badalyan, Stefan Bakardzhiev, Jacqueline Balen, Lorenc Bejko, Rebecca BernardosAndreas Bertsatos, Hanifi Biber, Ahmet Bilir, Mario Bodružić, Michelle Bonogofsky, Clive Bonsall, Dušan Borić, Nikola Borovinić, Guillermo Bravo Morante, Katharina Buttinger, Kim Callan, Francesca Candilio, Mario Carić, Olivia Cheronet, Stefan Chohadzhiev, Maria-Eleni Chovalopoulou, Stella Chryssoulaki, Ion Ciobanu, Natalija Čondić, Mihai Constantinescu, Emanuela Cristiani, Brendan J Culleton, Elizabeth Curtis, Jack Davis, Tatiana I Demcenco, Valentin Dergachev, Zafer Derin, Sylvia Deskaj, Seda Devejyan, Vojislav Djordjević, Kellie Sara Duffett Carlson, Laurie R Eccles, Nedko Elenski, Atilla Engin, Nihat Erdoğan, Sabiha Erir-Pazarcı, Daniel M Fernandes, Matthew Ferry, Suzanne Freilich, Alin Frînculeasa, Michael L Galaty, Beatriz Gamarra, Boris Gasparyan, Bisserka Gaydarska, Elif Genç, Timur Gültekin, Serkan Gündüz, Tamás Hajdu, Volker Heyd, Suren Hobosyan, Nelli Hovhannisyan, Iliya Iliev, Lora Iliev, Stanislav Iliev, İlkay İvgin, Ivor Janković, Lence Jovanova, Panagiotis Karkanas, Berna Kavaz-Kındığılı, Esra Hilal Kaya, Denise Keating, Douglas J Kennett, Seda Deniz Kesici, Anahit Khudaverdyan, Krisztián Kiss, Sinan Kılıç, Paul Klostermann, Sinem Kostak Boca Negra Valdes, Saša Kovačević, Marta Krenz-Niedbała, Maja Krznarić Škrivanko, Rovena Kurti, Pasko Kuzman, Ann Marie Lawson, Catalin Lazar, Krassimir Leshtakov, Thomas E Levy, Ioannis Liritzis, Kirsi O Lorentz, Sylwia Łukasik, Matthew Mah, Swapan Mallick, Kirsten Mandl, Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky, Roger Matthews, Wendy Matthews, Kathleen McSweeney, Varduhi Melikyan, Adam Micco, Megan Michel, Lidija Milašinović, Alissa Mittnik, Janet M Monge, Georgi Nekhrizov, Rebecca Nicholls, Alexey G Nikitin, Vassil Nikolov, Mario Novak, Iñigo Olalde, Jonas Oppenheimer, Anna Osterholtz, Celal Özdemir, Kadir Toykan Özdoğan, Nurettin Öztürk, Nikos Papadimitriou, Niki Papakonstantinou, Anastasia Papathanasiou, Lujana Paraman, Evgeny G Paskary, Nick Patterson, Ilian Petrakiev, Levon Petrosyan, Vanya Petrova, Anna Philippa-Touchais, Ashot Piliposyan, Nada Pocuca Kuzman, Hrvoje Potrebica, Bianca Preda-Bălănică, Zrinka Premužić, T Douglas Price, Lijun Qiu, Siniša Radović, Kamal Raeuf Aziz, Petra Rajić Šikanjić, Kamal Rasheed Raheem, Sergei Razumov, Amy Richardson, Jacob Roodenberg, Rudenc Ruka, Victoria Russeva, Mustafa Şahin, Ayşegül Şarbak, Emre Savaş, Constanze Schattke, Lynne Schepartz, Tayfun Selçuk, Ayla Sevim-Erol, Michel Shamoon-Pour, Henry M Shephard, Athanasios Sideris, Angela Simalcsik, Hakob Simonyan, Vitalij Sinika, Kendra Sirak, Ghenadie Sirbu, Mario Šlaus, Andrei Soficaru, Bilal Söğüt, Arkadiusz Sołtysiak, Çilem Sönmez-Sözer, Maria Stathi, Martin Steskal, Kristin Stewardson, Sharon Stocker, Fadime Suata-Alpaslan, Alexander Suvorov, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy, Tamás Szeniczey, Nikolai Telnov, Strahil Temov, Nadezhda Todorova, Ulsi Tota, Gilles Touchais, Sevi Triantaphyllou, Atila Türker, Marina Ugarković, Todor Valchev, Fanica Veljanovska, Zlatko Videvski, Cristian Virag, Anna Wagner, Sam Walsh, Piotr Włodarczak, J Noah Workman, Aram Yardumian, Evgenii Yarovoy, Alper Yener Yavuz, Hakan Yılmaz, Fatma Zalzala, Anna Zettl, Zhao Zhang, Rafet Çavuşoğlu, Nadin Rohland, Ron Pinhasi, David Reich, Ruben Davtyan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

By sequencing 727 ancient individuals from the Southern Arc (Anatolia and its neighbors in Southeastern Europe and West Asia) over 10,000 years, we contextualize its Chalcolithic period and Bronze Age (about 5000 to 1000 BCE), when extensive gene flow entangled it with the Eurasian steppe. Two streams of migration transmitted Caucasus and Anatolian/Levantine ancestry northward, and the Yamnaya pastoralists, formed on the steppe, then spread southward into the Balkans and across the Caucasus into Armenia, where they left numerous patrilineal descendants. Anatolia was transformed by intra-West Asian gene flow, with negligible impact of the later Yamnaya migrations. This contrasts with all other regions where Indo-European languages were spoken, suggesting that the homeland of the Indo-Anatolian language family was in West Asia, with only secondary dispersals of non-Anatolian Indo-Europeans from the steppe.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbereabm4247
Number of pages14
JournalScience
Volume377
Issue number6609
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 26 Aug 2022

Keywords

  • Asia
  • Balkan Peninsula
  • Europe
  • Gene Flow
  • Genome, Human
  • History, Ancient
  • Human Migration/history
  • Humans
  • Whites/genetics

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