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Ancient Rome was the capital of an empire of ~70 million inhabitants, but little is known about the genetics of ancient Romans. Here we present 127 genomes from 29 archaeological sites in and around Rome, spanning the past 12,000 years. We observe two major prehistoric ancestry transitions: one with the introduction of farming and another prior to the Iron Age. By the founding of Rome, the genetic composition of the region approximated that of modern Mediterranean populations. During the Imperial period, Rome’s population received net immigration from the Near East, followed by an increase in genetic contributions from Europe. These ancestry shifts mirrored the geopolitical affiliations of Rome and were accompanied by marked interindividual diversity, reflecting gene flow from across the Mediterranean, Europe, and North Africa.

The present study applies a dental morphological perspective to the understanding of the complex pre-contact population history of the South Central Andes, through the detection of the underlying dynamics, and the assessment of the biological ties among groups. It presents an analysis of 1591 individuals from 66 sites that date from the Archaic to the Late Intermediate phases from Bolivia, Chile and Peru. The results suggest this area is characterized by significant movement of people and cultures and, at the same time, by long standing population continuity, and highlight the need for wider perspectives capable of taking into account both the different micro-regional realities and the region in its entirety.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Humans settled the Caribbean about 6,000 years ago, and ceramic use and intensified agriculture mark a shift from the Archaic to the Ceramic Age at around 2,500 years ago 1 – 3 . Here we report genome-wide data from 174 ancient individuals from The Bahamas, Haiti and the Dominican Republic (collectively, Hispaniola), Puerto Rico, Curaçao and Venezuela, which we co-analysed with 89 previously published ancient individuals. Stone-tool-using Caribbean people, who first entered the Caribbean during the Archaic Age, derive from a deeply divergent population that is closest to Central and northern South American individuals; contrary to previous work 4 , we find no support for ancestry contributed by a population related to North American individuals. Archaic-related lineages were >98% replaced by a genetically homogeneous ceramic-using population related to speakers of languages in the Arawak family from northeast South America; these people moved through the Lesser Antilles and into the Greater Antilles at least 1,700 years ago, introducing ancestry that is still present. Ancient Caribbean people avoided close kin unions despite limited mate pools that reflect small effective population sizes, which we estimate to be a minimum of 500–1,500 and a maximum of 1,530–8,150 individuals on the combined islands of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola in the dozens of generations before the individuals who we analysed lived. Census sizes are unlikely to be more than tenfold larger than effective population sizes, so previous pan-Caribbean estimates of hundreds of thousands of people are too large 5 , 6 . Confirming a small and interconnected Ceramic Age population 7 , we detect 19 pairs of cross-island cousins, close relatives buried around 75 km apart in Hispaniola and low genetic differentiation across islands. Genetic continuity across transitions in pottery styles reveals that cultural changes during the Ceramic Age were not driven by migration of genetically differentiated groups from the mainland, but instead reflected interactions within an interconnected Caribbean world 1 , 8 . Ancient DNA reveals genetic differences between stone-tool users and people associated with ceramic technology in the Caribbean and provides substantially lower estimates of population sizes in the region before European contact.

Ancient DNA from the Mediterranean has revealed long-range connections and population transformations associated with the spread of food producing economies. But in contrast to abundant data from Europe, data from this key transition in northern Africa have only been available from the far western Maghreb (Morocco). We present whole genome data for nine individuals from the Later Stone Age (LSA) through the Neolithic in Algeria and Tunisia. The earliest cluster with pre-Neolithic people of the western Maghreb ( 15000–7600 BP), showing that this “Maghrebi” ancestry profile had a substantial geographic and temporal extent. At least one individual from Djebba (Tunisia), dating to 8000 BP, harbored ancestry from European hunter-gatherers, likely reflecting early Holocene movement across the Strait of Sicily. Later Neolithic people from the eastern Maghreb retained largely local forager ancestry as well as smaller contributions from European farmers (by 7000 BP) and Levantine groups (by 6800 BP), and were thus far less impacted by external gene flow than other parts of the Neolithic Mediterranean.

Steppe-pastoralist-related ancestry reached Central Europe by at least 2500 bc , whereas Iranian farmer-related ancestry was present in Aegean Europe by at least 1900 bc . However, the spread of these ancestries into the western Mediterranean, where they have contributed to many populations that live today, remains poorly understood. Here, we generated genome-wide ancient-DNA data from the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Sardinia, increasing the number of individuals with reported data from 5 to 66. The oldest individual from the Balearic Islands (~2400 bc ) carried ancestry from steppe pastoralists that probably derived from west-to-east migration from Iberia, although two later Balearic individuals had less ancestry from steppe pastoralists. In Sicily, steppe pastoralist ancestry arrived by ~2200 bc , in part from Iberia; Iranian-related ancestry arrived by the mid-second millennium bc, contemporary to its previously documented spread to the Aegean; and there was large-scale population replacement after the Bronze Age. In Sardinia, nearly all ancestry derived from the island’s early farmers until the first millennium bc , with the exception of an outlier from the third millennium bc , who had primarily North African ancestry and who—along with an approximately contemporary Iberian—documents widespread Africa-to-Europe gene flow in the Chalcolithic. Major immigration into Sardinia began in the first millennium bc and, at present, no more than 56–62% of Sardinian ancestry is from its first farmers. This value is lower than previous estimates, highlighting that Sardinia, similar to every other region in Europe, has been a stage for major movement and mixtures of people. The history of human populations in the islands of the central and western Mediterranean is poorly understood. Here, the authors generate ancient-DNA data from the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Sardinia, and estimate the level and timing of steppe pastoralist, Iranian and North African ancestries in these populations.

The Iron Age was a dynamic period in central Mediterranean history, with the expansion of Greek and Phoenician colonies and the growth of Carthage into the dominant maritime power of the Mediterranean. These events were facilitated by the ease of long-distance travel following major advances in seafaring. We know from the archaeological record that trade goods and materials were moving across great distances in unprecedented quantities, but it is unclear how these patterns correlate with human mobility. Here, to investigate population mobility and interactions directly, we sequenced the genomes of 30 ancient individuals from coastal cities around the central Mediterranean, in Tunisia, Sardinia and central Italy. We observe a meaningful contribution of autochthonous populations, as well as highly heterogeneous ancestry including many individuals with non-local ancestries from other parts of the Mediterranean region. These results highlight both the role of local populations and the extreme interconnectedness of populations in the Iron Age Mediterranean. By studying these trans-Mediterranean neighbours together, we explore the complex interplay between local continuity and mobility that shaped the Iron Age societies of the central Mediterranean. The authors generate genomic data from 30 ancient human individuals, spanning the Bronze Age and the Iron Age from four archaeological sites in the Mediterranean (located in Tunisia, Sardinia and central Italy). Comparing with additional published ancient genomes, they generate insights into mobility and admixture in this interconnected region

The American continent has experienced two major events that have characterized the history of its population. The first event is the initial peopling that goes back to the Late Pleistocene (circa 16,000 years ago) (Goebel et al. 2008; Kumar et al. 2011; Potter et al. 2018), when the founding population spread into these new lands after having spent at least five millennia in the Beringia Land Bridge during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The second one occurred five centuries ago with the European “discovery” of the New World, which triggered intense population dynamics among continents that would change the cultural,

Explores the application of a selected number of newly emerging methods and techniques.   During the past few decades, Caribbean scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have increasingly developed and employed new methods and techniques for the study of archaeological materials. The aim of earlier research in the Caribbean was mainly to define typologies on the basis of pottery and lithic assemblages leading to the establishment of chronological charts for the region, and it was not until the 1980s that the use of technological and functional analyses of artifacts became widespread. The 1990s saw a veritable boom in this field, introducing innovative methods and techniques for analyzing artifacts and human skeletal remains. Innovative approaches included microscopic use-wear analysis, starch residue and phytolith analysis, stable isotope analysis, experimental research, ethnoarchaeological studies, geochemical analyses, and DNA studies.    The purpose of this volume is to describe new methods and techniques in the study of archaeological materials from the Caribbean and to assess possible avenues of mutual benefit and integration. Exploring the advantages and disadvantages in the application of a selected number of newly emerging methods and techniques, each of these approaches is illustrated by a case study. These studies benefited from a diverse array of experience and the international background of the researchers from Canada, the Netherlands, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Martinique, Italy, Mexico, Dominican Republic, England, and the United States who are integral members of the archaeological community of the Caribbean. A background to the study of archaeological materials in the Caribbean since the 1930s is provided in order to contextualize the latest developments in this field.    Contributors: Benoît Bérard, Mathijs Booden, Iris Briels, Jago Cooper, Alfredo Coppa, Andrea Cucina, Gareth Davies ,Hylke de Jong, Christy de Mille, Corinne L. Hofman, Menno L. P. Hoogland, Charlene Dixon Hutcheson, Daan Isendoorn, Loe Jacobs, William F. Keegan, Harold J. Kelly, Sebastiaan Knippenberg, Yvonne M. J. Lammers-Keijsers,Fernando Luna Calderón, Marcos Martinón-Torres, Lee A. Newsom, Channah Nieuwenhuis José R. Oliver,Jaime R. Pagán Jiménez, Raphaël G. A. M. Panhuysen, Roberto Rodríguez Suárez, Glenis Tavarez María, Michael Turney, Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, Annelou L. van Gijn,Rita Vargiu,Tamara Varney, Johannes Zijlstra

Modern humans first settled in Europe at least 45,000 years ago. However, limited genomic data from individuals dating between 45,000 and 20,000 years ago still restricts our understanding of population dynamics and admixture during the Upper Palaeolithic. Before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26.5–19 cal kya), Gravettian culture-associated populations were widespread and genetically diverse, comprising at least two distinct genetic groups, referred to as the Fournol and Věstonice clusters. We present genome-wide data from three Gravettian-associated individuals: two from cave sites in the Franco-Cantabrian region (Chufín and Isturitz) and one from Italy (Ostuni1b). These data reveal previously undetected gene flow linking the ancestry of 34,000-year-old individuals from Sungir (Russia) to Gravettian individuals from Western Europe, challenging the prevailing model of population continuity from the Aurignacian to the Solutrean. As osseous remains are scarce for this time period, DNA from sediments deposited by ancient humans opens a new possibility to obtain genomic data. We thus examine sedimentary DNA from Solutrean Layer 122 at El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, ∼22,000 cal BP), recovering approximately 16,000 human SNPs, among the highest yields reported from a Palaeolithic context. Generating these data required over 1.15 billion sequencing reads, illustrating both the potential of sediment DNA for autosomal analysis and the technical challenges of the approach.