Journal Article

Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

Cooper, Alan, Kunst, Michael, Hallgren, Fredrik, Szécsényi-Nagy, Anna, Brandt, Guido, Meyer, Matthias, Nicklisch, Nicole, Pichler, Sandra L., Nordenfelt, Susanne, Rohland, Nadin, Mallick, Swapan, Pena, Rafael Garrido, Llamas, Bastien, Harney, Eadaoin, Mittnik, Alissa, Khokhlov, Aleksandr, Risch, Roberto, Mochalov, Oleg, Roth, Christina, Economou, Christos, Wahl, Joachim, Alt, Kurt Werner, Stewardson, Kristin, Rojo Guerra, Manuel A., Francken, Michael, Friederich, Susanne, Anthony, David, Reich, David, Haak, Wolfgang, Meller, Harald, Krause, Johannes, Brown, Dorcas, Patterson, Nick, Fu, Qiaomei, Lazaridis, Iosif, Kuznetsov, Pavel, Moiseyev, Vayacheslav, Khartanovich, Valery, Bánffy, Eszter

2015

Overview

A genome-wide analysis of 69 ancient Europeans reveals the history of population migrations around the time that Indo-European languages arose in Europe, when there was a large migration into Europe from the Eurasian steppe in the east (providing a genetic ancestry still present in Europeans today); these findings support a ‘steppe origin’ hypothesis for how some Indo-European languages arose. Steppe change for European languages David Reich and colleagues generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000 and 3,000 years ago. Their analyses reveal that closely related groups of early farmers — different from indigenous hunter-gatherers — appeared in Germany, Hungary and Spain at around 8,000 to 7,000 years ago. At the same time Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a 24,000-year-old Siberian. By 6,000 to 5,000 years ago, a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry had occurred throughout much of Europe, apart from in Russia. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact about 4,500 years ago, leaving traces of steppe ancestry in present-day Europeans. In addition to providing new insights into Neolithic population dynamics, these analyses lend support to the theory of a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe. The reported findings are also consistent with a study of 101 Bronze Age genomes reported on page 167 of this issue. We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000–3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost 400,000 polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of Western and Far Eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000–5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ∼8,000–7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ∼24,000-year-old Siberian 6 . By ∼6,000–5,000 years ago, farmers throughout much of Europe had more hunter-gatherer ancestry than their predecessors, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but also from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ∼4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ∼75% of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ∼3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for a steppe origin 9 of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 631/181/19 / 631/181/27 / 631/181/457 / 631/208/726 / Bronze Age / Cultural Evolution - history / Deoxyribonucleic acid / DNA / Europe - ethnology / Farmers / Genealogy / Genetic testing / Genome, Human - genetics / Genomes / Grassland / History, Ancient / Human Migration - history / Humanities and Social Sciences / Humans / Hypotheses / Indo-European languages / Language - history / letter / Linguistic research / Male / Migration / multidisciplinary / Origin / Polymorphism, Genetic - genetics / Population / Population Dynamics / Principal components analysis / Russia / Science / Steppes