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Sawchuk EA, Sirak KA, Manthi FK, Ndiema EK, Ogola CA, Prendergast ME, Reich D, Aluvaala E, Ayodo G, Badji L, Bird N, Black W, Fregel R, Gachihi N, Gibbon VE, Gidna A, Goldstein ST, Hamad R, Hassan HY, Hayes VM, Hellenthal G, Kebede S, Kurewa A, Kusimba C, Kyazike E, Lane PJ, MacEachern S, Massilani D, Mbua E, Morris AG, Mutinda C, M'Mbogori FN, Reynolds AW, Tishkoff S, Vilar M, Yimer G. Charting a landmark-driven path forward for population genetics and ancient DNA research in Africa. Am J Hum Genet 2024; 111:1243-1251. [PMID: 38996465 PMCID: PMC11267517 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2024.05.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2024] [Revised: 05/20/2024] [Accepted: 05/21/2024] [Indexed: 07/14/2024] Open
Abstract
Population history-focused DNA and ancient DNA (aDNA) research in Africa has dramatically increased in the past decade, enabling increasingly fine-scale investigations into the continent's past. However, while international interest in human genomics research in Africa grows, major structural barriers limit the ability of African scholars to lead and engage in such research and impede local communities from partnering with researchers and benefitting from research outcomes. Because conversations about research on African people and their past are often held outside Africa and exclude African voices, an important step for African DNA and aDNA research is moving these conversations to the continent. In May 2023 we held the DNAirobi workshop in Nairobi, Kenya and here we synthesize what emerged most prominently in our discussions. We propose an ideal vision for population history-focused DNA and aDNA research in Africa in ten years' time and acknowledge that to realize this future, we need to chart a path connecting a series of "landmarks" that represent points of consensus in our discussions. These include effective communication across multiple audiences, reframed relationships and capacity building, and action toward structural changes that support science and beyond. We concluded there is no single path to creating an equitable and self-sustaining research ecosystem, but rather many possible routes linking these landmarks. Here we share our diverse perspectives as geneticists, anthropologists, archaeologists, museum curators, and educators to articulate challenges and opportunities for African DNA and aDNA research and share an initial map toward a more inclusive and equitable future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth A Sawchuk
- Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, OH, USA; Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada; Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
| | - Kendra A Sirak
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
| | | | | | | | | | - David Reich
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Eva Aluvaala
- Kenya Medical Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - George Ayodo
- Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Bondo, Kenya
| | - Lamine Badji
- Cultural Engineering Research Unit (URICA) of IFAN-University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal
| | - Nancy Bird
- UCL Genetics Institute and Research Department of Genetics, Evolution, and Environment, University College London, London, UK
| | - Wendy Black
- Archaeology Unit, Department of Research & Exhibitions, Iziko Museums of South Africa, Cape Town, South Africa; Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
| | - Rosa Fregel
- Evolution, Paleogenomics and Population Genetics Group, Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, Cell Biology and Genetics, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
| | | | - Victoria E Gibbon
- Division of Clinical Anatomy and Biological Anthropology, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
| | - Agness Gidna
- Department of Cultural Heritage, Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, Arusha, Tanzania
| | - Steven T Goldstein
- Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
| | - Reem Hamad
- Diversity and Diseases Group, Institute of Endemic Diseases, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan
| | - Hisham Y Hassan
- Bahrain Defence Force Hospital, Royal Medical Services, Riffa, Kingdom of Bahrain
| | - Vanessa M Hayes
- School of Medical Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia; School of Health Systems and Public Health, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
| | - Garrett Hellenthal
- UCL Genetics Institute and Research Department of Genetics, Evolution, and Environment, University College London, London, UK
| | - Solomon Kebede
- Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Abdikadir Kurewa
- National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya; Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | | | - Elizabeth Kyazike
- Department of History, Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Kyambogo University, Kampala, Uganda
| | - Paul J Lane
- Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Scott MacEachern
- Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, China
| | - Diyendo Massilani
- Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Emma Mbua
- National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Alan G Morris
- Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
| | | | | | - Austin W Reynolds
- Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Genetics, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, TX, USA
| | - Sarah Tishkoff
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Penn Center for Global Genomics & Health Equity, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Miguel Vilar
- Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Getnet Yimer
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Penn Center for Global Genomics & Health Equity, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
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2
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Sirak K, Jansen Van Rensburg J, Brielle E, Chen B, Lazaridis I, Ringbauer H, Mah M, Mallick S, Micco A, Rohland N, Callan K, Curtis E, Kearns A, Lawson AM, Workman JN, Zalzala F, Ahmed Al-Orqbi AS, Ahmed Salem EM, Salem Hasan AM, Britton DC, Reich D. Medieval DNA from Soqotra points to Eurasian origins of an isolated population at the crossroads of Africa and Arabia. Nat Ecol Evol 2024; 8:817-829. [PMID: 38332026 PMCID: PMC11009077 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02322-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2023] [Accepted: 12/11/2023] [Indexed: 02/10/2024]
Abstract
Soqotra, an island situated at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden in the northwest Indian Ocean between Africa and Arabia, is home to ~60,000 people subsisting through fishing and semi-nomadic pastoralism who speak a Modern South Arabian language. Most of what is known about Soqotri history derives from writings of foreign travellers who provided little detail about local people, and the geographic origins and genetic affinities of early Soqotri people has not yet been investigated directly. Here we report genome-wide data from 39 individuals who lived between ~650 and 1750 CE at six locations across the island and document strong genetic connections between Soqotra and the similarly isolated Hadramawt region of coastal South Arabia that likely reflects a source for the peopling of Soqotra. Medieval Soqotri can be modelled as deriving ~86% of their ancestry from a population such as that found in the Hadramawt today, with the remaining ~14% best proxied by an Iranian-related source with up to 2% ancestry from the Indian sub-continent, possibly reflecting genetic exchanges that occurred along with archaeologically documented trade from these regions. In contrast to all other genotyped populations of the Arabian Peninsula, genome-level analysis of the medieval Soqotri is consistent with no sub-Saharan African admixture dating to the Holocene. The deep ancestry of people from medieval Soqotra and the Hadramawt is also unique in deriving less from early Holocene Levantine farmers and more from groups such as Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers from the Levant (Natufians) than other mainland Arabians. This attests to migrations by early farmers having less impact in southernmost Arabia and Soqotra and provides compelling evidence that there has not been complete population replacement between the Pleistocene and Holocene throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Medieval Soqotra harboured a small population that showed qualitatively different marriage practices from modern Soqotri, with first-cousin unions occurring significantly less frequently than today.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kendra Sirak
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
| | | | - Esther Brielle
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Bowen Chen
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Iosif Lazaridis
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Harald Ringbauer
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Matthew Mah
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Swapan Mallick
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Adam Micco
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Nadin Rohland
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Kimberly Callan
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Elizabeth Curtis
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Aisling Kearns
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Ann Marie Lawson
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - J Noah Workman
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Fatma Zalzala
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | | | | | | | | | - David Reich
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA
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Vallini L, Zampieri C, Shoaee MJ, Bortolini E, Marciani G, Aneli S, Pievani T, Benazzi S, Barausse A, Mezzavilla M, Petraglia MD, Pagani L. The Persian plateau served as hub for Homo sapiens after the main out of Africa dispersal. Nat Commun 2024; 15:1882. [PMID: 38528002 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46161-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2023] [Accepted: 02/16/2024] [Indexed: 03/27/2024] Open
Abstract
A combination of evidence, based on genetic, fossil and archaeological findings, indicates that Homo sapiens spread out of Africa between ~70-60 thousand years ago (kya). However, it appears that once outside of Africa, human populations did not expand across all of Eurasia until ~45 kya. The geographic whereabouts of these early settlers in the timeframe between ~70-60 to 45 kya has been difficult to reconcile. Here we combine genetic evidence and palaeoecological models to infer the geographic location that acted as the Hub for our species during the early phases of colonisation of Eurasia. Leveraging on available genomic evidence we show that populations from the Persian Plateau carry an ancestry component that closely matches the population that settled the Hub outside Africa. With the paleoclimatic data available to date, we built ecological models showing that the Persian Plateau was suitable for human occupation and that it could sustain a larger population compared to other West Asian regions, strengthening this claim.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Carlo Zampieri
- Department of Biology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Mohamed Javad Shoaee
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany
| | - Eugenio Bortolini
- Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Giulia Marciani
- Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- Research Unit Prehistory and Anthropology, Department of Physical Sciences, Earth and Environment, University of Siena, Siena, Italy
| | - Serena Aneli
- Department of Public Health Sciences and Pediatrics, University of Turin, Turin, Italy
| | - Telmo Pievani
- Department of Biology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Stefano Benazzi
- Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Alberto Barausse
- Department of Biology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
- Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | | | - Michael D Petraglia
- Human Origins Program, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 20560, USA
- School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
| | - Luca Pagani
- Department of Biology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
- Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
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Mallick S, Micco A, Mah M, Ringbauer H, Lazaridis I, Olalde I, Patterson N, Reich D. The Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR) a curated compendium of ancient human genomes. Sci Data 2024; 11:182. [PMID: 38341426 PMCID: PMC10858950 DOI: 10.1038/s41597-024-03031-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2023] [Accepted: 01/31/2024] [Indexed: 02/12/2024] Open
Abstract
More than two hundred papers have reported genome-wide data from ancient humans. While the raw data for the vast majority are fully publicly available testifying to the commitment of the paleogenomics community to open data, formats for both raw data and meta-data differ. There is thus a need for uniform curation and a centralized, version-controlled compendium that researchers can download, analyze, and reference. Since 2019, we have been maintaining the Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR), which aims to provide an up-to-date, curated version of the world's published ancient human DNA data, represented at more than a million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at which almost all ancient individuals have been assayed. The AADR has gone through six public releases at the time of writing and review of this manuscript, and crossed the threshold of >10,000 individuals with published genome-wide ancient DNA data at the end of 2022. This note is intended as a citable descriptor of the AADR.
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Affiliation(s)
- Swapan Mallick
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA.
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
| | - Adam Micco
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Matthew Mah
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Harald Ringbauer
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
| | - Iosif Lazaridis
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
| | - Iñigo Olalde
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- BIOMICs Research Group, University of the Basque Country, 01006, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
| | - Nick Patterson
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
| | - David Reich
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA.
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA.
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5
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Fortes-Lima CA, Burgarella C, Hammarén R, Eriksson A, Vicente M, Jolly C, Semo A, Gunnink H, Pacchiarotti S, Mundeke L, Matonda I, Muluwa JK, Coutros P, Nyambe TS, Cikomola JC, Coetzee V, de Castro M, Ebbesen P, Delanghe J, Stoneking M, Barham L, Lombard M, Meyer A, Steyn M, Malmström H, Rocha J, Soodyall H, Pakendorf B, Bostoen K, Schlebusch CM. The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa. Nature 2024; 625:540-547. [PMID: 38030719 PMCID: PMC10794141 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06770-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2023] [Accepted: 10/20/2023] [Indexed: 12/01/2023]
Abstract
The expansion of people speaking Bantu languages is the most dramatic demographic event in Late Holocene Africa and fundamentally reshaped the linguistic, cultural and biological landscape of the continent1-7. With a comprehensive genomic dataset, including newly generated data of modern-day and ancient DNA from previously unsampled regions in Africa, we contribute insights into this expansion that started 6,000-4,000 years ago in western Africa. We genotyped 1,763 participants, including 1,526 Bantu speakers from 147 populations across 14 African countries, and generated whole-genome sequences from 12 Late Iron Age individuals8. We show that genetic diversity amongst Bantu-speaking populations declines with distance from western Africa, with current-day Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo as possible crossroads of interaction. Using spatially explicit methods9 and correlating genetic, linguistic and geographical data, we provide cross-disciplinary support for a serial-founder migration model. We further show that Bantu speakers received significant gene flow from local groups in regions they expanded into. Our genetic dataset provides an exhaustive modern-day African comparative dataset for ancient DNA studies10 and will be important to a wide range of disciplines from science and humanities, as well as to the medical sector studying human genetic variation and health in African and African-descendant populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cesar A Fortes-Lima
- Human Evolution Program, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Concetta Burgarella
- Human Evolution Program, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
- AGAP Institut, University of Montpellier, CIRAD, INRAE, Institut Agro, Montpellier, France
| | - Rickard Hammarén
- Human Evolution Program, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Anders Eriksson
- cGEM, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Mário Vicente
- Centre for Palaeogenetics, University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
- Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Cecile Jolly
- Human Evolution Program, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Armando Semo
- CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal
- BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, CIBIO, Campus de Vairão, Vairão, Portugal
- Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
| | - Hilde Gunnink
- UGent Centre for Bantu Studies (BantUGent), Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
- Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden, the Netherlands
| | - Sara Pacchiarotti
- UGent Centre for Bantu Studies (BantUGent), Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Leon Mundeke
- University of Kinshasa, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
| | - Igor Matonda
- University of Kinshasa, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
| | - Joseph Koni Muluwa
- Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Kikwit, Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo
| | - Peter Coutros
- UGent Centre for Bantu Studies (BantUGent), Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | | | | | - Vinet Coetzee
- Department of Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
| | - Minique de Castro
- Biotechnology Platform, Agricultural Research Council, Onderstepoort, Pretoria, South Africa
| | - Peter Ebbesen
- Department of Health Science and Technology, University of Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark
| | - Joris Delanghe
- Department of Diagnostic Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Mark Stoneking
- Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive, UMR 5558, Université Lyon 1, CNRS, Villeurbanne, France
| | - Lawrence Barham
- Department of Archaeology, Classics & Egyptology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
| | - Marlize Lombard
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Anja Meyer
- Human Variation and Identification Research Unit, School of Anatomical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Maryna Steyn
- Human Variation and Identification Research Unit, School of Anatomical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Helena Malmström
- Human Evolution Program, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Jorge Rocha
- CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, Portugal
- BIOPOLIS Program in Genomics, Biodiversity and Land Planning, CIBIO, Campus de Vairão, Vairão, Portugal
- Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
| | - Himla Soodyall
- Division of Human Genetics, School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Academy of Science of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
| | | | - Koen Bostoen
- UGent Centre for Bantu Studies (BantUGent), Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Carina M Schlebusch
- Human Evolution Program, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.
- SciLifeLab, Uppsala, Sweden.
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Tallman S, Sungo MDD, Saranga S, Beleza S. Whole genomes from Angola and Mozambique inform about the origins and dispersals of major African migrations. Nat Commun 2023; 14:7967. [PMID: 38042927 PMCID: PMC10693643 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43717-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2022] [Accepted: 11/17/2023] [Indexed: 12/04/2023] Open
Abstract
As the continent of origin for our species, Africa harbours the highest levels of diversity anywhere on Earth. However, many regions of Africa remain under-sampled genetically. Here we present 350 whole genomes from Angola and Mozambique belonging to ten Bantu ethnolinguistic groups, enabling the construction of a reference variation catalogue including 2.9 million novel SNPs. We investigate the emergence of Bantu speaker population structure, admixture involving migrations across sub-Saharan Africa and model the demographic histories of Angolan and Mozambican Bantu speakers. Our results bring together concordant views from genomics, archaeology, and linguistics to paint an updated view of the complexity of the Bantu Expansion. Moreover, we generate reference panels that better represents the diversity of African populations involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, improving imputation accuracy in African Americans and Brazilians. We anticipate that our collection of genomes will form the foundation for future African genomic healthcare initiatives.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sam Tallman
- University of Leicester, Department of Genetics & Genome Biology, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
- Genomics England, 1 Canada Square, London, E14 5AB, UK
| | | | - Sílvio Saranga
- Universidade Pedagógica, Avenida Eduardo Mondlane, CP 2107, Maputo, Mozambique
| | - Sandra Beleza
- University of Leicester, Department of Genetics & Genome Biology, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK.
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7
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Hammarén R, Goldstein ST, Schlebusch CM. Eurasian back-migration into Northeast Africa was a complex and multifaceted process. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0290423. [PMID: 37939042 PMCID: PMC10631636 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290423] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2022] [Accepted: 08/08/2023] [Indexed: 11/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Recent studies have identified Northeast Africa as an important area for human movements during the Holocene. Eurasian populations have moved back into Northeastern Africa and contributed to the genetic composition of its people. By gathering the largest reference dataset to date of Northeast, North, and East African as well as Middle Eastern populations, we give new depth to our knowledge of Northeast African demographic history. By employing local ancestry methods, we isolated the Non-African parts of modern-day Northeast African genomes and identified the best putative source populations. Egyptians and Sudanese Copts bore most similarities to Levantine populations whilst other populations in the region generally had predominantly genetic contributions from the Arabian peninsula rather than Levantine populations for their Non-African genetic component. We also date admixture events and investigated which factors influenced the date of admixture and find that major linguistic families were associated with the date of Eurasian admixture. Taken as a whole we detect complex patterns of admixture and diverse origins of Eurasian admixture in Northeast African populations of today.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rickard Hammarén
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany
| | - Steven T. Goldstein
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany
| | - Carina M. Schlebusch
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
- SciLifeLab, Uppsala, Sweden
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8
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Le Meillour L, Zazzo A, Zirah S, Tombret O, Barriel V, Arthur KW, Arthur JW, Cauliez J, Chaix L, Curtis MC, Gifford-Gonzalez D, Gunn I, Gutherz X, Hildebrand E, Khalidi L, Millet M, Mitchell P, Studer J, Vila E, Welker F, Pleurdeau D, Lesur J. The name of the game: palaeoproteomics and radiocarbon dates further refine the presence and dispersal of caprines in eastern and southern Africa. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2023; 10:231002. [PMID: 38026023 PMCID: PMC10663795 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.231002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2023] [Accepted: 11/03/2023] [Indexed: 12/01/2023]
Abstract
We report the first large-scale palaeoproteomics research on eastern and southern African zooarchaeological samples, thereby refining our understanding of early caprine (sheep and goat) pastoralism in Africa. Assessing caprine introductions is a complicated task because of their skeletal similarity to endemic wild bovid species and the sparse and fragmentary state of relevant archaeological remains. Palaeoproteomics has previously proved effective in clarifying species attributions in African zooarchaeological materials, but few comparative protein sequences of wild bovid species have been available. Using newly generated type I collagen sequences for wild species, as well as previously published sequences, we assess species attributions for elements originally identified as caprine or 'unidentifiable bovid' from 17 eastern and southern African sites that span seven millennia. We identified over 70% of the archaeological remains and the direct radiocarbon dating of domesticate specimens allows refinement of the chronology of caprine presence in both African regions. These results thus confirm earlier occurrences in eastern Africa and the systematic association of domesticated caprines with wild bovids at all archaeological sites. The combined biomolecular approach highlights repeatability and accuracy of the methods for conclusive contribution in species attribution of archaeological remains in dry African environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louise Le Meillour
- Unité Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques, Environnements (AASPE), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, CP 56, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France
- Unité Molécules de Communication et Adaptations des Micro-organismes (MCAM), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, CP 54, 57 rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France
- Section for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Globe Institute, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 København, Denmark
| | - Antoine Zazzo
- Unité Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques, Environnements (AASPE), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, CP 56, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Séverine Zirah
- Unité Molécules de Communication et Adaptations des Micro-organismes (MCAM), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, CP 54, 57 rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Olivier Tombret
- Unité Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques, Environnements (AASPE), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, CP 56, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France
- Unité Histoire naturelle de l'Homme Préhistorique (HNHP), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, UPVD, 1 rue René Panhard, 75013 Paris, France
| | - Véronique Barriel
- Centre de Recherche en Paléontologie – Paris (CR2P), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, CP 38, 8 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Kathryn W. Arthur
- Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida St. Petersburg, 140 7th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, FL 33713, USA
| | - John W. Arthur
- Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida St. Petersburg, 140 7th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, FL 33713, USA
| | - Jessie Cauliez
- Unité Travaux et Recherches Archéologiques sur les Cultures, les Espaces et les Sociétés (TRACES), CNRS, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, 5 allées Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse, France
| | - Louis Chaix
- Département d'archéozoologie, Muséum d'histoire naturelle (MHNG), 1 route de Malagnou, 1208 Genève, Switzerland
| | - Matthew C. Curtis
- Anthropology Program, California State University Channel Islands, 1 University Drive, Camarillo, CA 93012, USA
| | - Diane Gifford-Gonzalez
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz, Social Sciences 1 Faculty Svcs, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077, USA
| | - Imogen Gunn
- Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, UK
| | - Xavier Gutherz
- Unité Archéologie des Sociétés Méditerranéennes (ASM), CNRS, Université Montpellier III, Ministère de la Culture, INRAP, Montpellier, France
| | | | - Lamya Khalidi
- Unité Cultures et Environnements. Préhistoire, Antiquité, Moyen Age (CEPAM), Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, 24 avenue des Diables Bleus, 06300 Nice, France
| | - Marie Millet
- Département des Antiquités Égyptiennes, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
| | - Peter Mitchell
- School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3TG, United Kingdom and Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, PO Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Jacqueline Studer
- Département d'archéozoologie, Muséum d'histoire naturelle (MHNG), 1 route de Malagnou, 1208 Genève, Switzerland
| | - Emmanuelle Vila
- Unité Archéorient, Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien, CNRS, Université de Lyon 2, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, 7 rue Raulin, 69007 Lyon, France
| | - Frido Welker
- Section for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Globe Institute, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 København, Denmark
| | - David Pleurdeau
- Unité Histoire naturelle de l'Homme Préhistorique (HNHP), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, UPVD, 1 rue René Panhard, 75013 Paris, France
| | - Joséphine Lesur
- Unité Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques, Environnements (AASPE), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CNRS, CP 56, 55 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France
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9
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Faux P, Ding L, Ramirez-Aristeguieta LM, Chacón-Duque JC, Comini M, Mendoza-Revilla J, Fuentes-Guajardo M, Jaramillo C, Arias W, Hurtado M, Villegas V, Granja V, Barquera R, Everardo-Martínez P, Quinto-Sánchez M, Gómez-Valdés J, Villamil-Ramírez H, Silva de Cerqueira CC, Hünemeier T, Ramallo V, Gonzalez-José R, Schüler-Faccini L, Bortolini MC, Acuña-Alonzo V, Canizales-Quinteros S, Poletti G, Gallo C, Rothhammer F, Rojas W, Schmid AB, Adhikari K, Bennett DL, Ruiz-Linares A. Neanderthal introgression in SCN9A impacts mechanical pain sensitivity. Commun Biol 2023; 6:958. [PMID: 37816865 PMCID: PMC10564861 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-05286-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2023] [Accepted: 08/25/2023] [Indexed: 10/12/2023] Open
Abstract
The Nav1.7 voltage-gated sodium channel plays a key role in nociception. Three functional variants in the SCN9A gene (encoding M932L, V991L, and D1908G in Nav1.7), have recently been identified as stemming from Neanderthal introgression and to associate with pain symptomatology in UK BioBank data. In 1000 genomes data, these variants are absent in Europeans but common in Latin Americans. Analysing high-density genotype data from 7594 Latin Americans, we characterized Neanderthal introgression in SCN9A. We find that tracts of introgression occur on a Native American genomic background, have an average length of ~123 kb and overlap the M932L, V991L, and D1908G coding positions. Furthermore, we measured experimentally six pain thresholds in 1623 healthy Colombians. We found that Neanderthal ancestry in SCN9A is significantly associated with a lower mechanical pain threshold after sensitization with mustard oil and evidence of additivity of effects across Nav1.7 variants. Our findings support the reported association of Neanderthal Nav1.7 variants with clinical pain, define a specific sensory modality affected by archaic introgression in SCN9A and are consistent with independent effects of the Neanderthal variants on Nav1.7 function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pierre Faux
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology and Collaborative Innovation Center of Genetics and Development, School of Life Sciences and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University, Yangpu District, 200438, Shanghai, China
- UMR ADES, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, EFS, 13005, Marseille, France
- UMR GenPhySE, INRAE, INP, ENVT, Université de Toulouse, 31326, Castanet-Tolosan, France
| | - Li Ding
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology and Collaborative Innovation Center of Genetics and Development, School of Life Sciences and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University, Yangpu District, 200438, Shanghai, China
| | | | - J Camilo Chacón-Duque
- Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, SE-10691, Stockholm, Sweden
- Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, SE-1069, Stockholm, Sweden
- Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Maddalena Comini
- Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Oxford University, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
| | - Javier Mendoza-Revilla
- Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofía, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, 31, Lima, Perú
- Unit of Human Evolutionary Genetics, Institut Pasteur, 75015, Paris, France
| | - Macarena Fuentes-Guajardo
- Departamento de Tecnología Médica, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Tarapacá, 1000000, Arica, Chile
| | - Claudia Jaramillo
- GENMOL (Genética Molecular), Universidad de Antioquia, 5001000, Medellín, Colombia
| | - William Arias
- GENMOL (Genética Molecular), Universidad de Antioquia, 5001000, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Malena Hurtado
- Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofía, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, 31, Lima, Perú
| | - Valeria Villegas
- Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofía, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, 31, Lima, Perú
| | - Vanessa Granja
- Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofía, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, 31, Lima, Perú
| | - Rodrigo Barquera
- Molecular Genetics Laboratory, National School of Anthropology and History, Mexico City, 14050, 6600, Mexico, Mexico
- Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), 07745, Jena, Germany
| | - Paola Everardo-Martínez
- Molecular Genetics Laboratory, National School of Anthropology and History, Mexico City, 14050, 6600, Mexico, Mexico
| | - Mirsha Quinto-Sánchez
- Forensic Science, Faculty of Medicine, UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), 06320, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Jorge Gómez-Valdés
- Molecular Genetics Laboratory, National School of Anthropology and History, Mexico City, 14050, 6600, Mexico, Mexico
| | - Hugo Villamil-Ramírez
- Unidad de Genomica de Poblaciones Aplicada a la Salud, Facultad de Química, UNAM-Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica, 4510, Mexico City, Mexico
| | | | - Tábita Hünemeier
- Departamento de Genética e Biologia Evolutiva, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, 05508-090, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - Virginia Ramallo
- Departamento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 90040-060, Porto Alegre, Brasil
- Instituto Patagónico de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, Centro Nacional Patagónico, CONICET, U9129ACD, Puerto Madryn, Argentina
| | - Rolando Gonzalez-José
- Instituto Patagónico de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, Centro Nacional Patagónico, CONICET, U9129ACD, Puerto Madryn, Argentina
| | - Lavinia Schüler-Faccini
- Departamento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 90040-060, Porto Alegre, Brasil
| | - Maria-Cátira Bortolini
- Departamento de Genética, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 90040-060, Porto Alegre, Brasil
| | - Victor Acuña-Alonzo
- Molecular Genetics Laboratory, National School of Anthropology and History, Mexico City, 14050, 6600, Mexico, Mexico
| | - Samuel Canizales-Quinteros
- Unidad de Genomica de Poblaciones Aplicada a la Salud, Facultad de Química, UNAM-Instituto Nacional de Medicina Genómica, 4510, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Giovanni Poletti
- Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofía, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, 31, Lima, Perú
| | - Carla Gallo
- Laboratorios de Investigación y Desarrollo, Facultad de Ciencias y Filosofía, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, 31, Lima, Perú
| | - Francisco Rothhammer
- Instituto de Alta Investigación, Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, 1000000, Arica, Chile
| | - Winston Rojas
- GENMOL (Genética Molecular), Universidad de Antioquia, 5001000, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Annina B Schmid
- Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Oxford University, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
| | - Kaustubh Adhikari
- Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
- School of Mathematics and Statistics, Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK.
- Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
| | - David L Bennett
- Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Oxford University, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK.
| | - Andrés Ruiz-Linares
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology and Collaborative Innovation Center of Genetics and Development, School of Life Sciences and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University, Yangpu District, 200438, Shanghai, China.
- UMR ADES, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, EFS, 13005, Marseille, France.
- Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
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10
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Kipkemoi P, Kim HA, Christ B, O'Heir E, Allen J, Austin-Tse C, Baxter S, Brand H, Bryant S, Buser N, de Menil V, Eastman E, Murugasen S, Galvin A, Kombe M, Ngombo A, Mkubwa B, Mwangi P, Kipkoech C, Lovgren A, MacArthur DG, Melly B, Mwangasha K, Martin A, Nkambule LL, Sanchis-Juan A, Singer-Berk M, Talkowski ME, VanNoy G, van der Merwe C, Newton C, O'Donnell-Luria A, Abubakar A, Donald KA, Robinson EB. Phenotype and genetic analysis of data collected within the first year of NeuroDev. Neuron 2023; 111:2800-2810.e5. [PMID: 37463579 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.06.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2022] [Revised: 01/13/2023] [Accepted: 06/16/2023] [Indexed: 07/20/2023]
Abstract
Genetic association studies have made significant contributions to our understanding of the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). However, these studies rarely focused on the African continent. The NeuroDev Project aims to address this diversity gap through detailed phenotypic and genetic characterization of children with NDDs from Kenya and South Africa. We present results from NeuroDev's first year of data collection, including phenotype data from 206 cases and clinical genetic analyses of 99 parent-child trios. Most cases met criteria for global developmental delay/intellectual disability (GDD/ID, 80.3%). Approximately half of the children with GDD/ID also met criteria for autism. Analysis of exome-sequencing data identified a pathogenic or likely pathogenic variant in 13 (17%) of the 75 cases from South Africa and 9 (38%) of the 24 cases from Kenya. Data from the trio pilot are publicly available, and the NeuroDev Project will continue to develop resources for the global genetics community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Patricia Kipkemoi
- Neuroscience Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust, Center for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kilifi, Kenya; Complex Trait Genetics Department, Center for Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Heesu Ally Kim
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Bjorn Christ
- Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital and University of Cape Town, 4th Floor ICH Building, Rondebosch, South Africa
| | - Emily O'Heir
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Jake Allen
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Christina Austin-Tse
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA; Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | | | - Harrison Brand
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA; Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Sam Bryant
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Nick Buser
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Victoria de Menil
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Emma Eastman
- Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital and University of Cape Town, 4th Floor ICH Building, Rondebosch, South Africa
| | - Serini Murugasen
- Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital and University of Cape Town, 4th Floor ICH Building, Rondebosch, South Africa
| | - Alice Galvin
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Martha Kombe
- Neuroscience Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust, Center for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kilifi, Kenya
| | - Alfred Ngombo
- Neuroscience Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust, Center for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kilifi, Kenya
| | - Beatrice Mkubwa
- Neuroscience Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust, Center for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kilifi, Kenya
| | - Paul Mwangi
- Neuroscience Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust, Center for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kilifi, Kenya
| | - Collins Kipkoech
- Neuroscience Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust, Center for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kilifi, Kenya
| | - Alysia Lovgren
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | | | - Brigitte Melly
- Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital and University of Cape Town, 4th Floor ICH Building, Rondebosch, South Africa
| | - Katini Mwangasha
- Neuroscience Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust, Center for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kilifi, Kenya
| | - Alicia Martin
- Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Lethukuthula L Nkambule
- Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Alba Sanchis-Juan
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA; Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | | | - Michael E Talkowski
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA; Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Grace VanNoy
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | | | - Charles Newton
- Neuroscience Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust, Center for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kilifi, Kenya; Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, London, UK; Institute of Human Development, Aga Khan University, Nairobi, Kenya
| | - Anne O'Donnell-Luria
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA; Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; Division of Genetics and Genomics, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Amina Abubakar
- Neuroscience Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust, Center for Geographic Medicine Research Coast, Kilifi, Kenya; Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, London, UK; Institute of Human Development, Aga Khan University, Nairobi, Kenya.
| | - Kirsten A Donald
- Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital and University of Cape Town, 4th Floor ICH Building, Rondebosch, South Africa; Neuroscience Institute, University of Cape Town, Groote Schuur Hospital, Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa.
| | - Elise B Robinson
- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA; Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
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11
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Wang K, Prüfer K, Krause-Kyora B, Childebayeva A, Schuenemann VJ, Coia V, Maixner F, Zink A, Schiffels S, Krause J. High-coverage genome of the Tyrolean Iceman reveals unusually high Anatolian farmer ancestry. CELL GENOMICS 2023; 3:100377. [PMID: 37719142 PMCID: PMC10504632 DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100377] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2022] [Revised: 05/10/2023] [Accepted: 07/13/2023] [Indexed: 09/19/2023]
Abstract
The Tyrolean Iceman is known as one of the oldest human glacier mummies, directly dated to 3350-3120 calibrated BCE. A previously published low-coverage genome provided novel insights into European prehistory, despite high present-day DNA contamination. Here, we generate a high-coverage genome with low contamination (15.3×) to gain further insights into the genetic history and phenotype of this individual. Contrary to previous studies, we found no detectable Steppe-related ancestry in the Iceman. Instead, he retained the highest Anatolian-farmer-related ancestry among contemporaneous European populations, indicating a rather isolated Alpine population with limited gene flow from hunter-gatherer-ancestry-related populations. Phenotypic analysis revealed that the Iceman likely had darker skin than present-day Europeans and carried risk alleles associated with male-pattern baldness, type 2 diabetes, and obesity-related metabolic syndrome. These results corroborate phenotypic observations of the preserved mummified body, such as high pigmentation of his skin and the absence of hair on his head.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ke Wang
- MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
- Center of Evolutionary Biology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China
| | - Kay Prüfer
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Ben Krause-Kyora
- Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, Kiel University, 24118 Kiel, Germany
| | | | - Verena J. Schuenemann
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1030 Vienna, Austria
- Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
- Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences, University of Vienna, 1030 Vienna, Austria
| | - Valentina Coia
- Eurac Research - Institute for Mummy Studies, Viale Druso 1, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
| | - Frank Maixner
- Eurac Research - Institute for Mummy Studies, Viale Druso 1, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
| | - Albert Zink
- Eurac Research - Institute for Mummy Studies, Viale Druso 1, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
| | - Stephan Schiffels
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Johannes Krause
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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12
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Moots HM, Antonio M, Sawyer S, Spence JP, Oberreiter V, Weiß CL, Lucci M, Cherifi YMS, La Pastina F, Genchi F, Praxmeier E, Zagorc B, Cheronet O, Özdoğan KT, Demetz L, Amrani S, Candilio F, De Angelis D, Gasperetti G, Fernandes D, Gao Z, Fantar M, Coppa A, Pritchard JK, Pinhasi R. A genetic history of continuity and mobility in the Iron Age central Mediterranean. Nat Ecol Evol 2023; 7:1515-1524. [PMID: 37592021 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02143-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2022] [Accepted: 06/30/2023] [Indexed: 08/19/2023]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hannah M Moots
- Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
| | - Margaret Antonio
- Biomedical Informatics Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Susanna Sawyer
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | | | - Victoria Oberreiter
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Clemens L Weiß
- Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Michaela Lucci
- Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Yahia Mehdi Seddik Cherifi
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Cardiolo-Oncology Research Collaborative Group (CORCG), Faculty of Medicine, Benyoucef Benkhedda University, Algiers, Algeria
- Molecular Pathology, University Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, Toulouse, France
| | | | - Francesco Genchi
- Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
- Department of Oriental Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
| | - Elisa Praxmeier
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Brina Zagorc
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Olivia Cheronet
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Kadir T Özdoğan
- Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Lea Demetz
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Selma Amrani
- LBEIG, Population Genetics and Conservation Unit, Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology-Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene, Algiers, Algeria
| | | | - Daniela De Angelis
- Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Tarquinia, Direzione Generale Musei Lazio, Rome, Italy
| | - Gabriella Gasperetti
- Soprintendenza Archeologia, belle arti e paesaggio per le province di Sassari e Nuoro, Sassari, Italy
| | - Daniel Fernandes
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- CIAS, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Ziyue Gao
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Mounir Fantar
- Département des Monuments et des Sites Antiques-Institut National du Patrimoine INP, Tunis, Tunisia
| | - Alfredo Coppa
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
- Dipartimento di Storia Antropologia Religioni Arte Spettacolo, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Jonathan K Pritchard
- Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA.
| | - Ron Pinhasi
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
- Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
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13
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Harney É, Micheletti S, Bruwelheide KS, Freyman WA, Bryc K, Akbari A, Jewett E, Comer E, Louis Gates H, Heywood L, Thornton J, Curry R, Ancona Esselmann S, Barca KG, Sedig J, Sirak K, Olalde I, Adamski N, Bernardos R, Broomandkhoshbacht N, Ferry M, Qiu L, Stewardson K, Workman JN, Zalzala F, Mallick S, Micco A, Mah M, Zhang Z, Rohland N, Mountain JL, Owsley DW, Reich D. The genetic legacy of African Americans from Catoctin Furnace. Science 2023; 381:eade4995. [PMID: 37535739 PMCID: PMC10958645 DOI: 10.1126/science.ade4995] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2022] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 08/05/2023]
Abstract
Few African Americans have been able to trace family lineages back to ancestors who died before the 1870 United States Census, the first in which all Black people were listed by name. We analyzed 27 individuals from Maryland's Catoctin Furnace African American Cemetery (1774-1850), identifying 41,799 genetic relatives among consenting research participants in 23andMe, Inc.'s genetic database. One of the highest concentrations of close relatives is in Maryland, suggesting that descendants of the Catoctin individuals remain in the area. We find that many of the Catoctin individuals derived African ancestry from the Wolof or Kongo groups and European ancestry from Great Britain and Ireland. This study demonstrates the power of joint analysis of historical DNA and large datasets generated through direct-to-consumer ancestry testing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Éadaoin Harney
- 23andMe, Inc.; Sunnyvale, CA 94043, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
| | | | - Karin S. Bruwelheide
- Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Washington DC 20560, USA
| | | | | | - Ali Akbari
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | | | - Elizabeth Comer
- Catoctin Furnace Historical Society; Thurmont, MD, 21788, USA
| | - Henry Louis Gates
- Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Linda Heywood
- Department of History/African American Studies, Boston University; Brookline, MA 02446, USA
| | - John Thornton
- Department of History/African American Studies, Boston University; Brookline, MA 02446, USA
| | - Roslyn Curry
- 23andMe, Inc.; Sunnyvale, CA 94043, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
| | | | - Kathryn G. Barca
- Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Washington DC 20560, USA
| | - Jakob Sedig
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Kendra Sirak
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Iñigo Olalde
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- BIOMICs Research Group, Department of Zoology and Animal Cell Biology, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
- Ikerbasque—Basque Foundation of Science, Bilbao, Spain
| | - Nicole Adamski
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Rebecca Bernardos
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Matthew Ferry
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Lijun Qiu
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Kristin Stewardson
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - J. Noah Workman
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Fatma Zalzala
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | - Shop Mallick
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
| | - Adam Micco
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
| | - Matthew Mah
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
| | - Zhao Zhang
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | | | - Nadin Rohland
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
| | | | - Douglas W. Owsley
- Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution; Washington DC 20560, USA
| | - David Reich
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA, 02142, USA
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14
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Tuncay IO, DeVries D, Gogate A, Kaur K, Kumar A, Xing C, Goodspeed K, Seyoum-Tesfa L, Chahrour MH. The genetics of autism spectrum disorder in an East African familial cohort. CELL GENOMICS 2023; 3:100322. [PMID: 37492102 PMCID: PMC10363748 DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/16/2022] [Revised: 03/09/2023] [Accepted: 04/16/2023] [Indexed: 07/27/2023]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of complex neurodevelopmental conditions affecting communication and social interaction in 2.3% of children. Studies that demonstrated its complex genetic architecture have been mainly performed in populations of European ancestry. We investigate the genetics of ASD in an East African cohort (129 individuals) from a population with higher prevalence (5%). Whole-genome sequencing identified 2.13 million private variants in the cohort and potentially pathogenic variants in known ASD genes (including CACNA1C, CHD7, FMR1, and TCF7L2). Admixture analysis demonstrated that the cohort comprises two ancestral populations, African and Eurasian. Admixture mapping discovered 10 regions that confer ASD risk on the African haplotypes, containing several known ASD genes. The increased ASD prevalence in this population suggests decreased heterogeneity in the underlying genetic etiology, enabling risk allele identification. Our approach emphasizes the power of African genetic variation and admixture analysis to inform the architecture of complex disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Islam Oguz Tuncay
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Darlene DeVries
- Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Ashlesha Gogate
- Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Kiran Kaur
- Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Ashwani Kumar
- Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Chao Xing
- Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
- Department of Population and Data Sciences, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
- Lyda Hill Department of Bioinformatics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | - Kimberly Goodspeed
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
- Department of Neurology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
| | | | - Maria H Chahrour
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
- Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
- Center for the Genetics of Host Defense, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
- Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75390, USA
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15
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Sousa da Mota B, Rubinacci S, Cruz Dávalos DI, G Amorim CE, Sikora M, Johannsen NN, Szmyt MH, Włodarczak P, Szczepanek A, Przybyła MM, Schroeder H, Allentoft ME, Willerslev E, Malaspinas AS, Delaneau O. Imputation of ancient human genomes. Nat Commun 2023; 14:3660. [PMID: 37339987 PMCID: PMC10282092 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39202-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2022] [Accepted: 06/02/2023] [Indexed: 06/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Due to postmortem DNA degradation and microbial colonization, most ancient genomes have low depth of coverage, hindering genotype calling. Genotype imputation can improve genotyping accuracy for low-coverage genomes. However, it is unknown how accurate ancient DNA imputation is and whether imputation introduces bias to downstream analyses. Here we re-sequence an ancient trio (mother, father, son) and downsample and impute a total of 43 ancient genomes, including 42 high-coverage (above 10x) genomes. We assess imputation accuracy across ancestries, time, depth of coverage, and sequencing technology. We find that ancient and modern DNA imputation accuracies are comparable. When downsampled at 1x, 36 of the 42 genomes are imputed with low error rates (below 5%) while African genomes have higher error rates. We validate imputation and phasing results using the ancient trio data and an orthogonal approach based on Mendel's rules of inheritance. We further compare the downstream analysis results between imputed and high-coverage genomes, notably principal component analysis, genetic clustering, and runs of homozygosity, observing similar results starting from 0.5x coverage, except for the African genomes. These results suggest that, for most populations and depths of coverage as low as 0.5x, imputation is a reliable method that can improve ancient DNA studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bárbara Sousa da Mota
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Simone Rubinacci
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Diana Ivette Cruz Dávalos
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | | | - Martin Sikora
- Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Niels N Johannsen
- Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Marzena H Szmyt
- Institute for Eastern Research, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poznań, Poland
| | - Piotr Włodarczak
- Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, Poland
| | - Anita Szczepanek
- Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, Poland
- Department of Anatomy, Jagiellonian University, Medical College, Kraków, Poland
| | | | - Hannes Schroeder
- The Globe Institute, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Morten E Allentoft
- Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Trace and Environmental DNA (TrEnD) Laboratory, School of Molecular and Life Science, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia
| | - Eske Willerslev
- Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- GeoGenetics Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridge, UK
- MARUM, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
| | - Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
| | - Olivier Delaneau
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
- Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
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16
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Fan S, Spence JP, Feng Y, Hansen MEB, Terhorst J, Beltrame MH, Ranciaro A, Hirbo J, Beggs W, Thomas N, Nyambo T, Mpoloka SW, Mokone GG, Njamnshi A, Folkunang C, Meskel DW, Belay G, Song YS, Tishkoff SA. Whole-genome sequencing reveals a complex African population demographic history and signatures of local adaptation. Cell 2023; 186:923-939.e14. [PMID: 36868214 PMCID: PMC10568978 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.01.042] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 27.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2022] [Revised: 10/16/2022] [Accepted: 01/30/2023] [Indexed: 03/05/2023]
Abstract
We conduct high coverage (>30×) whole-genome sequencing of 180 individuals from 12 indigenous African populations. We identify millions of unreported variants, many predicted to be functionally important. We observe that the ancestors of southern African San and central African rainforest hunter-gatherers (RHG) diverged from other populations >200 kya and maintained a large effective population size. We observe evidence for ancient population structure in Africa and for multiple introgression events from "ghost" populations with highly diverged genetic lineages. Although currently geographically isolated, we observe evidence for gene flow between eastern and southern Khoesan-speaking hunter-gatherer populations lasting until ∼12 kya. We identify signatures of local adaptation for traits related to skin color, immune response, height, and metabolic processes. We identify a positively selected variant in the lightly pigmented San that influences pigmentation in vitro by regulating the enhancer activity and gene expression of PDPK1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shaohua Fan
- State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, Human Phenome Institute, Zhangjiang Fudan International Innovation Center, School of Life Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200438, China; Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Jeffrey P Spence
- Department of Genetics, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Yuanqing Feng
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Matthew E B Hansen
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Jonathan Terhorst
- Department of Statistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Marcia H Beltrame
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Alessia Ranciaro
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Jibril Hirbo
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - William Beggs
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
| | - Neil Thomas
- Computer Science Division, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
| | - Thomas Nyambo
- Department of Biochemistry, Kampala International University in Tanzania, P.O. Box 9790, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
| | - Sununguko Wata Mpoloka
- Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Botswana Gaborone, Private Bag UB 0022, Gaborone, Botswana
| | - Gaonyadiwe George Mokone
- Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Botswana Gaborone, Private Bag UB 0022, Gaborone, Botswana
| | - Alfred Njamnshi
- Department of Neurology, Central Hospital Yaoundé; Brain Research Africa Initiative (BRAIN), Neuroscience Lab, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, The University of Yaoundé I, P.O. Box 337, Yaoundé, Cameroon
| | - Charles Folkunang
- Department of Pharmacotoxicology and Pharmacokinetics, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, The University of Yaoundé I, P.O. Box 337, Yaoundé, Cameroon
| | - Dawit Wolde Meskel
- Department of Microbial Cellular and Molecular Biology, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Gurja Belay
- Department of Microbial Cellular and Molecular Biology, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Yun S Song
- Computer Science Division, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
| | - Sarah A Tishkoff
- Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
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17
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Peltola S, Majander K, Makarov N, Dobrovolskaya M, Nordqvist K, Salmela E, Onkamo P. Genetic admixture and language shift in the medieval Volga-Oka interfluve. Curr Biol 2023; 33:174-182.e10. [PMID: 36513080 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.11.036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/01/2022] [Revised: 09/23/2022] [Accepted: 11/17/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
The Volga-Oka interfluve in northwestern Russia has an intriguing history of population influx and language shift during the Common Era. Today, most inhabitants of the region speak Russian, but until medieval times, northwestern Russia was inhabited by Uralic-speaking peoples.1,2,3 A gradual shift to Slavic languages started in the second half of the first millennium with the expansion of Slavic tribes, which led to the foundation of the Kievan Rus' state in the late 9th century CE. The medieval Rus' was multicultural and multilingual-historical records suggest that its northern regions comprised Slavic and Uralic peoples ruled by Scandinavian settlers.4,5,6 In the 10th-11th centuries, the introduction of Christianity and Cyrillic literature raised the prestige status of Slavic, driving a language shift from Uralic to Slavic.3 This eventually led to the disappearance of the Uralic languages from northwestern Russia. Here, we study a 1,500-year time transect of 30 ancient genomes and stable isotope values from the Suzdal region in the Volga-Oka interfluve. We describe a previously unsampled local Iron Age population and a gradual genetic turnover in the following centuries. Our time transect captures the population shift associated with the spread of Slavic languages and illustrates the ethnically mixed state of medieval Suzdal principality, eventually leading to the formation of the admixed but fully Slavic-speaking population that inhabits the area today. We also observe genetic outliers that highlight the importance of the Suzdal region in medieval times as a hub of long-reaching contacts via trade and warfare.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sanni Peltola
- Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland; Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
| | - Kerttu Majander
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1030 Vienna, Austria
| | - Nikolaj Makarov
- Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 117292 Moscow, Russia
| | - Maria Dobrovolskaya
- Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 117292 Moscow, Russia
| | - Kerkko Nordqvist
- Department of Cultures, Archaeology, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
| | - Elina Salmela
- Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland; Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Biology, University of Turku, 20014 Turku, Finland
| | - Päivi Onkamo
- Department of Biology, University of Turku, 20014 Turku, Finland.
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18
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Söylev A, Çokoglu SS, Koptekin D, Alkan C, Somel M. CONGA: Copy number variation genotyping in ancient genomes and low-coverage sequencing data. PLoS Comput Biol 2022; 18:e1010788. [PMID: 36516232 PMCID: PMC9873172 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010788] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/07/2022] [Revised: 01/24/2023] [Accepted: 12/03/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
To date, ancient genome analyses have been largely confined to the study of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Copy number variants (CNVs) are a major contributor of disease and of evolutionary adaptation, but identifying CNVs in ancient shotgun-sequenced genomes is hampered by typical low genome coverage (<1×) and short fragments (<80 bps), precluding standard CNV detection software to be effectively applied to ancient genomes. Here we present CONGA, tailored for genotyping CNVs at low coverage. Simulations and down-sampling experiments suggest that CONGA can genotype deletions >1 kbps with F-scores >0.75 at ≥1×, and distinguish between heterozygous and homozygous states. We used CONGA to genotype 10,002 outgroup-ascertained deletions across a heterogenous set of 71 ancient human genomes spanning the last 50,000 years, produced using variable experimental protocols. A fraction of these (21/71) display divergent deletion profiles unrelated to their population origin, but attributable to technical factors such as coverage and read length. The majority of the sample (50/71), despite originating from nine different laboratories and having coverages ranging from 0.44×-26× (median 4×) and average read lengths 52-121 bps (median 69), exhibit coherent deletion frequencies. Across these 50 genomes, inter-individual genetic diversity measured using SNPs and CONGA-genotyped deletions are highly correlated. CONGA-genotyped deletions also display purifying selection signatures, as expected. CONGA thus paves the way for systematic CNV analyses in ancient genomes, despite the technical challenges posed by low and variable genome coverage.
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Affiliation(s)
- Arda Söylev
- Department of Computer Engineering, Konya Food and Agriculture University, Konya, Turkey
- Institute for Medical Biometry and Bioinformatics, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
- * E-mail: (AS); (MS)
| | | | - Dilek Koptekin
- Department of Health Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
| | - Can Alkan
- Department of Computer Engineering, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
| | - Mehmet Somel
- Department of Biology, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
- * E-mail: (AS); (MS)
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19
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Wang K, Bleasdale M, Le Moyne C, Freund C, Krause J, Boivin N, Schiffels S. 4000-year-old hair from the Middle Nile highlights unusual ancient DNA degradation pattern and a potential source of early eastern Africa pastoralists. Sci Rep 2022; 12:20939. [PMID: 36463384 PMCID: PMC9719486 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-25384-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2022] [Accepted: 11/29/2022] [Indexed: 12/07/2022] Open
Abstract
Petrous bones and teeth are the skeletal elements most often targeted by researchers for ancient DNA (aDNA) extraction, and the sources of the majority of previously published ancient African genomes. However, the high temperature environments that characterise much of Africa often lead to poor preservation of skeletal remains. Here, we successfully reconstruct and analyse genome-wide data from the naturally mummified hair of a 4000-year-old individual from Sudan in northeastern Africa, after failed attempts at DNA extraction from teeth, petrous, and cranium of this and other individuals from the Kadruka cemeteries. We find that hair DNA extracted with an established single-stranded library protocol is unusually enriched in ultra-short DNA molecules and exhibits substantial interior molecular damage. The aDNA was nonetheless amenable to genetic analyses, which revealed that the genome is genetically indistinguishable from that of early Neolithic eastern African pastoralists located 2500 kms away. Our findings are consistent with established models for the southward dispersal of Middle Nile Valley pastoral populations to the Rift Valley of eastern Africa, and provide a possible genetic source population for this dispersal. Our study highlights the value of mummified hair as an alternate source of aDNA from regions with poor bone preservation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ke Wang
- grid.419518.00000 0001 2159 1813Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany ,grid.8547.e0000 0001 0125 2443School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Madeleine Bleasdale
- grid.5685.e0000 0004 1936 9668Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, UK ,grid.469873.70000 0004 4914 1197Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany
| | - Charles Le Moyne
- grid.469873.70000 0004 4914 1197Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany ,grid.1003.20000 0000 9320 7537School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
| | - Cacilia Freund
- grid.419518.00000 0001 2159 1813Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Johannes Krause
- grid.419518.00000 0001 2159 1813Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Nicole Boivin
- grid.469873.70000 0004 4914 1197Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany ,grid.1003.20000 0000 9320 7537School of Social Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
| | - Stephan Schiffels
- grid.419518.00000 0001 2159 1813Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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20
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Charlton S, Brace S, Hajdinjak M, Kearney R, Booth T, Reade H, Tripp JA, Sayle KL, Grimm SB, Bello SM, Walker EA, Gilardet A, East P, Glocke I, Larson G, Higham T, Stringer C, Skoglund P, Barnes I, Stevens RE. Dual ancestries and ecologies of the Late Glacial Palaeolithic in Britain. Nat Ecol Evol 2022; 6:1658-1668. [PMID: 36280785 PMCID: PMC9630104 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01883-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2021] [Accepted: 08/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Genetic investigations of Upper Palaeolithic Europe have revealed a complex and transformative history of human population movements and ancestries, with evidence of several instances of genetic change across the European continent in the period following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Concurrent with these genetic shifts, the post-LGM period is characterized by a series of significant climatic changes, population expansions and cultural diversification. Britain lies at the extreme northwest corner of post-LGM expansion and its earliest Late Glacial human occupation remains unclear. Here we present genetic data from Palaeolithic human individuals in the United Kingdom and the oldest human DNA thus far obtained from Britain or Ireland. We determine that a Late Upper Palaeolithic individual from Gough's Cave probably traced all its ancestry to Magdalenian-associated individuals closely related to those from sites such as El Mirón Cave, Spain, and Troisième Caverne in Goyet, Belgium. However, an individual from Kendrick's Cave shows no evidence of having ancestry related to the Gough’s Cave individual. Instead, the Kendrick’s Cave individual traces its ancestry to groups who expanded across Europe during the Late Glacial and are represented at sites such as Villabruna, Italy. Furthermore, the individuals differ not only in their genetic ancestry profiles but also in their mortuary practices and their diets and ecologies, as evidenced through stable isotope analyses. This finding mirrors patterns of dual genetic ancestry and admixture previously detected in Iberia but may suggest a more drastic genetic turnover in northwestern Europe than in the southwest. The authors report genetic, archaeological and stable isotopic data from two late Palaeolithic individuals in Britain, from Gough's Cave and Kendrick's Cave. The individuals differ not only in their ancestry but also their diets, ecologies and mortuary practices, revealing diverse origins and lifeways among inhabitants of late Pleistocene Britain.
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21
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Huang Y, Ringbauer H. hapCon: Estimating Contamination of Ancient Genomes by Copying from Reference Haplotypes. Bioinformatics 2022; 38:3768-3777. [PMID: 35695771 PMCID: PMC9344841 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btac390] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2021] [Revised: 06/03/2022] [Accepted: 06/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Motivation Human ancient DNA (aDNA) studies have surged in recent years, revolutionizing the study of the human past. Typically, aDNA is preserved poorly, making such data prone to contamination from other human DNA. Therefore, it is important to rule out substantial contamination before proceeding to downstream analysis. As most aDNA samples can only be sequenced to low coverages (<1× average depth), computational methods that can robustly estimate contamination in the low coverage regime are needed. However, the ultra low-coverage regime (0.1× and below) remains a challenging task for existing approaches. Results We present a new method to estimate contamination in aDNA for male modern humans. It utilizes a Li&Stephens haplotype copying model for haploid X chromosomes, with mismatches modeled as errors or contamination. We assessed this new approach, hapCon, on simulated and down-sampled empirical aDNA data. Our experiments demonstrate that hapCon outperforms a commonly used tool for estimating male X contamination (ANGSD), with substantially lower variance and narrower confidence intervals, especially in the low coverage regime. We found that hapCon provides useful contamination estimates for coverages as low as 0.1× for SNP capture data (1240k) and 0.02× for whole genome sequencing data, substantially extending the coverage limit of previous male X chromosome-based contamination estimation methods. Our experiments demonstrate that hapCon has little bias for contamination up to 25–30% as long as the contaminating source is specified within continental genetic variation, and that its application range extends to human aDNA as old as ∼45 000 and various global ancestries. Availability and implementation We make hapCon available as part of a python package (hapROH), which is available at the Python Package Index (https://pypi.org/project/hapROH) and can be installed via pip. The documentation provides example use cases as blueprints for custom applications (https://haproh.readthedocs.io/en/latest/hapCon.html). The program can analyze either BAM files or pileup files produced with samtools. An implementation of our software (hapCon) using Python and C is deposited at https://github.com/hyl317/hapROH. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yilei Huang
- Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
| | - Harald Ringbauer
- Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
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22
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Srigyan M, Bolívar H, Ureña I, Santana J, Petersen A, Iriarte E, Kırdök E, Bergfeldt N, Mora A, Jakobsson M, Abdo K, Braemer F, Smith C, Ibañez JJ, Götherström A, Günther T, Valdiosera C. Bioarchaeological evidence of one of the earliest Islamic burials in the Levant. Commun Biol 2022; 5:554. [PMID: 35672445 PMCID: PMC9174286 DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03508-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2021] [Accepted: 05/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
The Middle East plays a central role in human history harbouring a vast diversity of ethnic, cultural and religious groups. However, much remains to be understood about past and present genomic diversity in this region. Here we present a multidisciplinary bioarchaeological analysis of two individuals dated to the late 7th and early 8th centuries, the Umayyad Era, from Tell Qarassa, an open-air site in modern-day Syria. Radiocarbon dates and burial type are consistent with one of the earliest Islamic Arab burials in the Levant. Interestingly, we found genomic similarity to a genotyped group of modern-day Bedouins and Saudi rather than to most neighbouring Levantine groups. This study represents the genomic analysis of a secondary use site with characteristics consistent with an early Islamic burial in the Levant. We discuss our findings and possible historic scenarios in the light of forces such as genetic drift and their possible interaction with religious and cultural processes (including diet and subsistence practices). Ancient genomic and archaeological data combine to identify a surprisingly early Islamic burial in modern day Syria.
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Affiliation(s)
- Megha Srigyan
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.,Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA
| | - Héctor Bolívar
- Centre for Palaeogenetics, 10691, Stockholm, Sweden.,Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España, 28040, Madrid, Spain
| | - Irene Ureña
- Centre for Palaeogenetics, 10691, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Jonathan Santana
- Department of Historical Sciences, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de G.C., E35001, Spain
| | | | - Eneko Iriarte
- Laboratorio de Evolución Humana, Departamento de Historia, Geografía y Comunicación, Universidad de Burgos, 09001, Burgos, Spain
| | - Emrah Kırdök
- Department of Biotechnology, Mersin University, 33343, Mersin, Turkey
| | | | - Alice Mora
- Dept. Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, 3086, Australia
| | - Mattias Jakobsson
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Khaled Abdo
- General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums, Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic
| | - Frank Braemer
- Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, Culture et Environment, Préhistoire Antiquité Moyen Age, Nice, France
| | - Colin Smith
- Laboratorio de Evolución Humana, Departamento de Historia, Geografía y Comunicación, Universidad de Burgos, 09001, Burgos, Spain.,Dept. Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, 3086, Australia
| | - Juan José Ibañez
- Archaeology of Social Dynamics, Milà i Fontanals Institution, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
| | | | - Torsten Günther
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
| | - Cristina Valdiosera
- Laboratorio de Evolución Humana, Departamento de Historia, Geografía y Comunicación, Universidad de Burgos, 09001, Burgos, Spain. .,Dept. Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, 3086, Australia.
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23
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Genomic and dietary discontinuities during the Mesolithic and Neolithic in Sicily. iScience 2022; 25:104244. [PMID: 35494246 PMCID: PMC9051636 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104244] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2022] [Revised: 03/21/2022] [Accepted: 04/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Sicily is a key region for understanding the agricultural transition in the Mediterranean because of its central position. Here, we present genomic and stable isotopic data for 19 prehistoric Sicilians covering the Mesolithic to Bronze Age periods (10,700–4,100 yBP). We find that Early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (HGs) from Sicily are a highly drifted lineage of the Early Holocene western European HGs, whereas Late Mesolithic HGs carry ∼20% ancestry related to northern and (south) eastern European HGs, indicating substantial gene flow. Early Neolithic farmers are genetically most similar to farmers from the Balkans and Greece, with only ∼7% of ancestry from local Mesolithic HGs. The genetic discontinuities during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic match the changes in material culture and diet. Three outlying individuals dated to ∼8,000 yBP; however, suggest that hunter-gatherers interacted with incoming farmers at Grotta dell’Uzzo, resulting in a mixed economy and diet for a brief interlude at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. Genetic transition between Early Mesolithic and Late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers A near-complete genetic turnover during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition Exchange of subsistence practices between hunter-gatherers and early farmers
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24
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Human evolution: The unsealed fates of foragers and farmers. Curr Biol 2022; 32:R362-R365. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.03.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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25
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Hellwig T, Abbo S, Ophir R. Phylogeny and disparate selection signatures suggest two genetically independent domestication events in pea (Pisum L.). THE PLANT JOURNAL : FOR CELL AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY 2022; 110:419-439. [PMID: 35061306 PMCID: PMC9303476 DOI: 10.1111/tpj.15678] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/13/2021] [Accepted: 01/15/2022] [Indexed: 05/25/2023]
Abstract
Domestication is considered a model of adaptation that can be used to draw conclusions about the modus operandi of selection in natural systems. Investigating domestication may give insights into how plants react to different intensities of human manipulation, which has direct implication for the continuing efforts of crop improvement. Therefore, scientists of various disciplines study domestication-related questions to understand the biological and cultural bases of the domestication process. We employed restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq) of 494 Pisum sativum (pea) samples from all wild and domesticated groups to analyze the genetic structure of the collection. Patterns of ancient admixture were investigated by analysis of admixture graphs. We used two complementary approaches, one diversity based and one based on differentiation, to detect the selection signatures putatively associated with domestication. An analysis of the subpopulation structure of wild P. sativum revealed five distinct groups with a notable geographic pattern. Pisum abyssinicum clustered unequivocally within the P. sativum complex, without any indication of hybrid origin. We detected 32 genomic regions putatively subjected to selection: 29 in P. sativum ssp. sativum and three in P. abyssinicum. The two domesticated groups did not share regions under selection and did not display similar haplotype patterns within those regions. Wild P. sativum is structured into well-diverged subgroups. Although Pisum sativum ssp. humile is not supported as a taxonomic entity, the so-called 'southern humile' is a genuine wild group. Introgression did not shape the variation observed within the sampled germplasm. The two domesticated pea groups display distinct genetic bases of domestication, suggesting two genetically independent domestication events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Timo Hellwig
- The Levi Eshkol School of AgricultureThe Hebrew University of JerusalemJerusalem, RehovotIsrael
- Volcani Center, Agricultural Research OrganizationRishon LeZionIsrael
- Institute of Plant Genetics, Heinrich‐Heine‐UniversityDüsseldorfGermany
| | - Shahal Abbo
- The Levi Eshkol School of AgricultureThe Hebrew University of JerusalemJerusalem, RehovotIsrael
| | - Ron Ophir
- Volcani Center, Agricultural Research OrganizationRishon LeZionIsrael
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26
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Gopalan S, Berl REW, Myrick JW, Garfield ZH, Reynolds AW, Bafens BK, Belbin G, Mastoras M, Williams C, Daya M, Negash AN, Feldman MW, Hewlett BS, Henn BM. Hunter-gatherer genomes reveal diverse demographic trajectories during the rise of farming in Eastern Africa. Curr Biol 2022; 32:1852-1860.e5. [PMID: 35271793 PMCID: PMC9050894 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.02.050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2019] [Revised: 05/12/2021] [Accepted: 02/16/2022] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
The fate of hunting and gathering populations following the rise of agriculture and pastoralism remains a topic of debate in the study of human prehistory. Studies of ancient and modern genomes have found that autochthonous groups were largely replaced by expanding farmer populations with varying levels of gene flow, a characterization that is influenced by the almost universal focus on the European Neolithic.1-5 We sought to understand the demographic impact of an ongoing cultural transition to farming in Southwest Ethiopia, one of the last regions in Africa to experience such shifts.6 Importantly, Southwest Ethiopia is home to several of the world's remaining hunter-gatherer groups, including the Chabu people, who are currently transitioning away from their traditional mode of subsistence.7 We generated genome-wide data from the Chabu and four neighboring populations, the Majang, Shekkacho, Bench, and Sheko, to characterize their genetic ancestry and estimate their effective population sizes over the last 60 generations. We show that the Chabu are a distinct population closely related to ancient people who occupied Southwest Ethiopia >4,500 years ago. Furthermore, the Chabu are undergoing a severe population bottleneck, which began approximately 1,400 years ago. By analyzing eleven Eastern African populations, we find evidence for divergent demographic trajectories among hunter-gatherer-descendant groups. Our results illustrate that although foragers respond to encroaching agriculture and pastoralism with multiple strategies, including cultural adoption of agropastoralism, gene flow, and economic specialization, they often face population decline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shyamalika Gopalan
- Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA; Center for Genetic Epidemiology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - Richard E W Berl
- School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA; Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
| | - Justin W Myrick
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA; UC Davis Genome Center, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
| | - Zachary H Garfield
- Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA 98686, USA; Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Université Toulouse, Toulouse 31080, France
| | - Austin W Reynolds
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA; Department of Anthropology, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798, USA
| | - Barnabas K Bafens
- Diaspora and Protocol Affairs Office, Bench Sheko Zone Administration, Mizan, Ethiopia
| | - Gillian Belbin
- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
| | - Mira Mastoras
- UC Davis Genome Center, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA
| | - Cole Williams
- Department of Medicine, University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO 80045, USA
| | - Michelle Daya
- Department of Medicine, University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO 80045, USA
| | - Akmel N Negash
- Department of Anthropology, Hawassa University, Hawassa, SNNPR, Ethiopia
| | - Marcus W Feldman
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Barry S Hewlett
- Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA 98686, USA.
| | - Brenna M Henn
- Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA; UC Davis Genome Center, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
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27
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Wohns AW, Wong Y, Jeffery B, Akbari A, Mallick S, Pinhasi R, Patterson N, Reich D, Kelleher J, McVean G. A unified genealogy of modern and ancient genomes. Science 2022; 375:eabi8264. [PMID: 35201891 PMCID: PMC10027547 DOI: 10.1126/science.abi8264] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 20.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/13/2023]
Abstract
The sequencing of modern and ancient genomes from around the world has revolutionized our understanding of human history and evolution. However, the problem of how best to characterize ancestral relationships from the totality of human genomic variation remains unsolved. Here, we address this challenge with nonparametric methods that enable us to infer a unified genealogy of modern and ancient humans. This compact representation of multiple datasets explores the challenges of missing and erroneous data and uses ancient samples to constrain and date relationships. We demonstrate the power of the method to recover relationships between individuals and populations as well as to identify descendants of ancient samples. Finally, we introduce a simple nonparametric estimator of the geographical location of ancestors that recapitulates key events in human history.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anthony Wilder Wohns
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford; Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
| | - Yan Wong
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford; Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
| | - Ben Jeffery
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford; Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
| | - Ali Akbari
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Swapan Mallick
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Ron Pinhasi
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna; 1090 Vienna, Austria
| | - Nick Patterson
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - David Reich
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Jerome Kelleher
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford; Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
| | - Gil McVean
- Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford; Oxford OX3 7LF, UK
- Corresponding author.
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28
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Ancient DNA and deep population structure in sub-Saharan African foragers. Nature 2022; 603:290-296. [PMID: 35197631 PMCID: PMC8907066 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04430-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2021] [Accepted: 01/14/2022] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
Multiple lines of genetic and archaeological evidence suggest that there were major demographic changes in the terminal Late Pleistocene epoch and early Holocene epoch of sub-Saharan Africa1–4. Inferences about this period are challenging to make because demographic shifts in the past 5,000 years have obscured the structures of more ancient populations3,5. Here we present genome-wide ancient DNA data for six individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years (doubling the time depth of sub-Saharan African ancient DNA), increase the data quality for 15 previously published ancient individuals and analyse these alongside data from 13 other published ancient individuals. The ancestry of the individuals in our study area can be modelled as a geographically structured mixture of three highly divergent source populations, probably reflecting Pleistocene interactions around 80–20 thousand years ago, including deeply diverged eastern and southern African lineages, plus a previously unappreciated ubiquitous distribution of ancestry that occurs in highest proportion today in central African rainforest hunter-gatherers. Once established, this structure remained highly stable, with limited long-range gene flow. These results provide a new line of genetic evidence in support of hypotheses that have emerged from archaeological analyses but remain contested, suggesting increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. DNA analysis of 6 individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years, and of 28 previously published ancient individuals, provides genetic evidence supporting hypotheses of increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene.
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29
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Göllner T, Larena M, Kutanan W, Lukas H, Fieder M, Schaschl H. Unveiling the Genetic History of the Maniq, a primary hunter-gatherer society. Genome Biol Evol 2022; 14:6526392. [PMID: 35143674 PMCID: PMC9005329 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evac021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
The Maniq of southern Thailand is one of the last remaining practicing hunter-gatherer communities in the world. However, our knowledge on their genetic origins and demographic history is still largely limited. We present here the genotype data covering ∼2.3 million single nucleotide polymorphisms of 11 unrelated Maniq individuals. Our analyses reveal the Maniq to be closely related to the Semang populations of Malaysia (Malay Negritos), who altogether carry an Andamanese-related ancestry linked to the ancient Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers of Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA). Moreover, the Maniq possess ∼35% East Asian-related ancestry, likely brought about by recent admixture with surrounding agriculturist communities in the region. In addition, the Maniq exhibit one of the highest levels of genetic differentiation found among living human populations, indicative of their small population size and historical practice of endogamy. Similar to other hunter-gatherer populations of MSEA, we also find the Maniq to possess low levels of Neanderthal ancestry and undetectable levels of Denisovan ancestry. Altogether, we reveal the Maniq to be a Semang group that experienced intense genetic drift and exhibits signs of ancient Hòabìnhian ancestry.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tobias Göllner
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Maximilian Larena
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen, Uppsala, 18C, 75236, Sweden
| | - Wibhu Kutanan
- Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, 40002, Thailand
| | - Helmut Lukas
- Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
| | - Martin Fieder
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Helmut Schaschl
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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30
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Abstract
Joint phylogenetic analysis of ancient DNA (aDNA) with modern phylogenies is hampered by low sequence coverage and post-mortem deamination, often resulting in overconservative or incorrect assignment. We provide a new efficient likelihood-based workflow, pathPhynder, that takes advantage of all the polymorphic sites in the target sequence. This effectively evaluates the number of ancestral and derived alleles present on each branch and reports the most likely placement of an ancient sample in the phylogeny and a haplogroup assignment, together with alternatives and supporting evidence. To illustrate the application of pathPhynder, we show improved Y chromosome assignments for published aDNA sequences, using a newly compiled Y variation data set (120,908 markers from 2,014 samples) that significantly enhances Y haplogroup assignment for low coverage samples. We apply the method to all published male aDNA samples from Africa, giving new insights into ancient migrations and the relationships between ancient and modern populations. The same software can be used to place samples with large amounts of missing data into other large non-recombining phylogenies such as the mitochondrial tree.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rui Martiniano
- Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
| | - Bianca De Sanctis
- Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Pille Hallast
- Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Richard Durbin
- Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom
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31
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Sirak KA, Fernandes DM, Lipson M, Mallick S, Mah M, Olalde I, Ringbauer H, Rohland N, Hadden CS, Harney É, Adamski N, Bernardos R, Broomandkhoshbacht N, Callan K, Ferry M, Lawson AM, Michel M, Oppenheimer J, Stewardson K, Zalzala F, Patterson N, Pinhasi R, Thompson JC, Van Gerven D, Reich D. Social stratification without genetic differentiation at the site of Kulubnarti in Christian Period Nubia. Nat Commun 2021; 12:7283. [PMID: 34907168 PMCID: PMC8671435 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27356-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2021] [Accepted: 11/16/2021] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Relatively little is known about Nubia's genetic landscape prior to the influence of the Islamic migrations that began in the late 1st millennium CE. Here, we increase the number of ancient individuals with genome-level data from the Nile Valley from three to 69, reporting data for 66 individuals from two cemeteries at the Christian Period (~650-1000 CE) site of Kulubnarti, where multiple lines of evidence suggest social stratification. The Kulubnarti Nubians had ~43% Nilotic-related ancestry (individual variation between ~36-54%) with the remaining ancestry consistent with being introduced through Egypt and ultimately deriving from an ancestry pool like that found in the Bronze and Iron Age Levant. The Kulubnarti gene pool - shaped over a millennium - harbors disproportionately female-associated West Eurasian-related ancestry. Genetic similarity among individuals from the two cemeteries supports a hypothesis of social division without genetic distinction. Seven pairs of inter-cemetery relatives suggest fluidity between cemetery groups. Present-day Nubians are not directly descended from the Kulubnarti Nubians, attesting to additional genetic input since the Christian Period.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kendra A. Sirak
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA ,grid.189967.80000 0001 0941 6502Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 USA ,grid.7886.10000 0001 0768 2743Earth Institute and School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin, 4 Ireland
| | - Daniel M. Fernandes
- grid.7886.10000 0001 0768 2743Earth Institute and School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin, 4 Ireland ,grid.10420.370000 0001 2286 1424Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, 1090 Austria ,grid.8051.c0000 0000 9511 4342CIAS, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal
| | - Mark Lipson
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
| | - Swapan Mallick
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.66859.34Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
| | - Matthew Mah
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.66859.34Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
| | - Iñigo Olalde
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.5612.00000 0001 2172 2676Institute of Evolutionary Biology, CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Harald Ringbauer
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
| | - Nadin Rohland
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.66859.34Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142 USA
| | - Carla S. Hadden
- grid.213876.90000 0004 1936 738XCenter for Applied Isotope Studies, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602 USA
| | - Éadaoin Harney
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
| | - Nicole Adamski
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
| | - Rebecca Bernardos
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
| | - Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.205975.c0000 0001 0740 6917Present Address: Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA
| | - Kimberly Callan
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
| | - Matthew Ferry
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
| | - Ann Marie Lawson
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.214458.e0000000086837370Present Address: Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
| | - Megan Michel
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XPresent Address: Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
| | - Jonas Oppenheimer
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.205975.c0000 0001 0740 6917Present Address: Department of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA
| | - Kristin Stewardson
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
| | - Fatma Zalzala
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
| | - Nick Patterson
- grid.66859.34Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142 USA
| | - Ron Pinhasi
- grid.7886.10000 0001 0768 2743Earth Institute and School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin, 4 Ireland ,grid.10420.370000 0001 2286 1424Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, 1090 Austria
| | - Jessica C. Thompson
- grid.189967.80000 0001 0941 6502Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 USA ,grid.47100.320000000419368710Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 USA ,grid.47100.320000000419368710Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven, CT 06511 USA ,grid.215654.10000 0001 2151 2636Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287 USA
| | - Dennis Van Gerven
- grid.266190.a0000000096214564Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309 USA
| | - David Reich
- grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XDepartment of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA ,grid.66859.34Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142 USA ,grid.38142.3c000000041936754XHoward Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115 USA
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32
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Razali RM, Rodriguez-Flores J, Ghorbani M, Naeem H, Aamer W, Aliyev E, Jubran A, Clark AG, Fakhro KA, Mokrab Y. Thousands of Qatari genomes inform human migration history and improve imputation of Arab haplotypes. Nat Commun 2021; 12:5929. [PMID: 34642339 PMCID: PMC8511259 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25287-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2020] [Accepted: 08/02/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Arab populations are largely understudied, notably their genetic structure and history. Here we present an in-depth analysis of 6,218 whole genomes from Qatar, revealing extensive diversity as well as genetic ancestries representing the main founding Arab genealogical lineages of Qahtanite (Peninsular Arabs) and Adnanite (General Arabs and West Eurasian Arabs). We find that Peninsular Arabs are the closest relatives of ancient hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers from the Levant, and that founder Arab populations experienced multiple splitting events 12–20 kya, consistent with the aridification of Arabia and farming in the Levant, giving rise to settler and nomadic communities. In terms of recent genetic flow, we show that these ancestries contributed significantly to European, South Asian as well as South American populations, likely as a result of Islamic expansion over the past 1400 years. Notably, we characterize a large cohort of men with the ChrY J1a2b haplogroup (n = 1,491), identifying 29 unique sub-haplogroups. Finally, we leverage genotype novelty to build a reference panel of 12,432 haplotypes, demonstrating improved genotype imputation for both rare and common alleles in Arabs and the wider Middle East. Arab populations are relatively understudied, especially their genetic architecture and historical relationship with early founders of the ancient Near East. Here, the authors examine 6,218 Qatari whole genomes, revealing insights on migration, population history and genetic structure of populations across the Middle Eastern region.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Haroon Naeem
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar
| | - Waleed Aamer
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar
| | - Elbay Aliyev
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar
| | - Ali Jubran
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar
| | | | - Andrew G Clark
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, New York, NY, USA
| | - Khalid A Fakhro
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar. .,Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, Doha, Qatar. .,College of Health and Life Sciences, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar.
| | - Younes Mokrab
- Department of Human Genetics, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar. .,Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, Doha, Qatar. .,College of Health and Life Sciences, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar.
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33
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Liu Y, Mao X, Krause J, Fu Q. Insights into human history from the first decade of ancient human genomics. Science 2021; 373:1479-1484. [PMID: 34554811 DOI: 10.1126/science.abi8202] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
[Figure: see text].
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Affiliation(s)
- Yichen Liu
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China
| | - Xiaowei Mao
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China
| | - Johannes Krause
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Qiaomei Fu
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100044, China.,University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
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34
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Ferreira JC, Alshamali F, Montinaro F, Cavadas B, Torroni A, Pereira L, Raveane A, Fernandes V. Projecting Ancient Ancestry in Modern-Day Arabians and Iranians: A Key Role of the Past Exposed Arabo-Persian Gulf on Human Migrations. Genome Biol Evol 2021; 13:6364187. [PMID: 34480555 PMCID: PMC8435661 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evab194] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/17/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
The Arabian Peninsula is strategic for investigations centered on the early structuring of modern humans in the wake of the out-of-Africa migration. Despite its poor climatic conditions for the recovery of ancient human DNA evidence, the availability of both genomic data from neighboring ancient specimens and informative statistical tools allow modeling the ancestry of local modern populations. We applied this approach to a data set of 741,000 variants screened in 291 Arabians and 78 Iranians, and obtained insightful evidence. The west-east axis was a strong forcer of population structure in the Peninsula, and, more importantly, there were clear continuums throughout time linking western Arabia with the Levant, and eastern Arabia with Iran and the Caucasus. Eastern Arabians also displayed the highest levels of the basal Eurasian lineage of all tested modern-day populations, a signal that was maintained even after correcting for a possible bias due to a recent sub-Saharan African input in their genomes. Not surprisingly, eastern Arabians were also the ones with highest similarity with Iberomaurusians, who were, so far, the best proxy for the basal Eurasians amongst the known ancient specimens. The basal Eurasian lineage is the signature of ancient non-Africans who diverged from the common European-eastern Asian pool before 50,000 years ago, prior to the later interbred with Neanderthals. Our results appear to indicate that the exposed basin of the Arabo-Persian Gulf was the possible home of basal Eurasians, a scenario to be further investigated by searching ancient Arabian human specimens.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana C Ferreira
- i3S-Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Portugal.,IPATIMUP-Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto, Portugal.,ICBAS-Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
| | - Farida Alshamali
- Department of Forensic Sciences and Criminology, Dubai Police General Headquarters, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
| | - Francesco Montinaro
- Department of Biology-Genetics, University of Bari, Italy.,Estonian Biocentre, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Estonia
| | - Bruno Cavadas
- i3S-Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Portugal.,IPATIMUP-Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto, Portugal
| | - Antonio Torroni
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology "L. Spallanzani", University of Pavia, Italy
| | - Luisa Pereira
- i3S-Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Portugal.,IPATIMUP-Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto, Portugal
| | - Alessandro Raveane
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology "L. Spallanzani", University of Pavia, Italy.,Laboratory of Haematology-Oncology, European Institute of Oncology IRCCS, Milan, Italy
| | - Veronica Fernandes
- i3S-Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Portugal.,IPATIMUP-Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto, Portugal
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35
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Aguiar VRC, Augusto DG, Castelli EC, Hollenbach JA, Meyer D, Nunes K, Petzl-Erler ML. An immunogenetic view of COVID-19. Genet Mol Biol 2021; 44:e20210036. [PMID: 34436508 PMCID: PMC8388242 DOI: 10.1590/1678-4685-gmb-2021-0036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2021] [Accepted: 06/12/2021] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Meeting the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic requires an interdisciplinary approach. In this context, integrating knowledge of immune function with an understanding of how genetic variation influences the nature of immunity is a key challenge. Immunogenetics can help explain the heterogeneity of susceptibility and protection to the viral infection and disease progression. Here, we review the knowledge developed so far, discussing fundamental genes for triggering the innate and adaptive immune responses associated with a viral infection, especially with the SARS-CoV-2 mechanisms. We emphasize the role of the HLA and KIR genes, discussing what has been uncovered about their role in COVID-19 and addressing methodological challenges of studying these genes. Finally, we comment on questions that arise when studying admixed populations, highlighting the case of Brazil. We argue that the interplay between immunology and an understanding of genetic associations can provide an important contribution to our knowledge of COVID-19.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vitor R. C. Aguiar
- Universidade de São Paulo, Departamento de Genética e Biologia
Evolutiva, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - Danillo G. Augusto
- University of California, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences,
Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
- Universidade Federal do Paraná, Departamento de Genética, Curitiba,
PR, Brazil
| | - Erick C. Castelli
- Universidade Estadual Paulista, Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu,
Departamento de Patologia, Botucatu, SP, Brazil
| | - Jill A. Hollenbach
- University of California, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences,
Department of Neurology, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Diogo Meyer
- Universidade de São Paulo, Departamento de Genética e Biologia
Evolutiva, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - Kelly Nunes
- Universidade de São Paulo, Departamento de Genética e Biologia
Evolutiva, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
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36
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Beyer RM, Krapp M, Eriksson A, Manica A. Climatic windows for human migration out of Africa in the past 300,000 years. Nat Commun 2021; 12:4889. [PMID: 34429408 PMCID: PMC8384873 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24779-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/21/2020] [Accepted: 07/02/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Whilst an African origin of modern humans is well established, the timings and routes of their expansions into Eurasia are the subject of heated debate, due to the scarcity of fossils and the lack of suitably old ancient DNA. Here, we use high-resolution palaeoclimate reconstructions to estimate how difficult it would have been for humans in terms of rainfall availability to leave the African continent in the past 300k years. We then combine these results with an anthropologically and ecologically motivated estimate of the minimum level of rainfall required by hunter-gatherers to survive, allowing us to reconstruct when, and along which geographic paths, expansions out of Africa would have been climatically feasible. The estimated timings and routes of potential contact with Eurasia are compatible with archaeological and genetic evidence of human expansions out of Africa, highlighting the key role of palaeoclimate variability for modern human dispersals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robert M Beyer
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany.
| | - Mario Krapp
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
| | - Anders Eriksson
- cGEM, cGEM, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Andrea Manica
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
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37
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Speidel L, Cassidy L, Davies RW, Hellenthal G, Skoglund P, Myers SR. Inferring Population Histories for Ancient Genomes Using Genome-Wide Genealogies. Mol Biol Evol 2021; 38:3497-3511. [PMID: 34129037 PMCID: PMC8383901 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab174] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Ancient genomes anchor genealogies in directly observed historical genetic variation and contextualize ancestral lineages with archaeological insights into their geography and cultural associations. However, the majority of ancient genomes are of lower coverage and cannot be directly built into genealogies. Here, we present a fast and scalable method, Colate, the first approach for inferring ancestral relationships through time between low-coverage genomes without requiring phasing or imputation. Our approach leverages sharing patterns of mutations dated using a genealogy to infer coalescence rates. For deeply sequenced ancient genomes, we additionally introduce an extension of the Relate algorithm for joint inference of genealogies incorporating such genomes. Application to 278 present-day and 430 ancient DNA samples of >0.5x mean coverage allows us to identify dynamic population structure and directional gene flow between early farmer and European hunter-gatherer groups. We further show that the previously reported, but still unexplained, increase in the TCC/TTC mutation rate, which is strongest in West Eurasia today, was already present at similar strength and widespread in the Late Glacial Period ~10k-15k years ago, but is not observed in samples >30k years old. It is strongest in Neolithic farmers, and highly correlated with recent coalescence rates between other genomes and a 10,000-year-old Anatolian hunter-gatherer. This suggests gene-flow among ancient peoples postdating the last glacial maximum as widespread and localizes the driver of this mutational signal in both time and geography in that region. Our approach should be widely applicable in future for addressing other evolutionary questions, and in other species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leo Speidel
- Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom
- Genetics Institute, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Lara Cassidy
- Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
| | - Robert W Davies
- Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | | | | | - Simon R Myers
- Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
- Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
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38
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Freilich S, Ringbauer H, Los D, Novak M, Pavičić DT, Schiffels S, Pinhasi R. Reconstructing genetic histories and social organisation in Neolithic and Bronze Age Croatia. Sci Rep 2021; 11:16729. [PMID: 34408163 PMCID: PMC8373892 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-94932-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2021] [Accepted: 07/13/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Ancient DNA studies have revealed how human migrations from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age transformed the social and genetic structure of European societies. Present-day Croatia lies at the heart of ancient migration routes through Europe, yet our knowledge about social and genetic processes here remains sparse. To shed light on these questions, we report new whole-genome data for 28 individuals dated to between ~ 4700 BCE-400 CE from two sites in present-day eastern Croatia. In the Middle Neolithic we evidence first cousin mating practices and strong genetic continuity from the Early Neolithic. In the Middle Bronze Age community that we studied, we find multiple closely related males suggesting a patrilocal social organisation. We also find in that community an unexpected genetic ancestry profile distinct from individuals found at contemporaneous sites in the region, due to the addition of hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. These findings support archaeological evidence for contacts with communities further north in the Carpathian Basin. Finally, an individual dated to Roman times exhibits an ancestry profile that is broadly present in the region today, adding an important data point to the substantial shift in ancestry that occurred in the region between the Bronze Age and today.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suzanne Freilich
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
- Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, 07745, Jena, Germany.
| | - Harald Ringbauer
- Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, 07745, Jena, Germany
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA
- Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA
- Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA
| | | | - Mario Novak
- Centre for Applied Bioanthropology, Institute for Anthropological Research, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia
| | | | - Stephan Schiffels
- Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, 07745, Jena, Germany.
| | - Ron Pinhasi
- Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
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39
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Almarri MA, Haber M, Lootah RA, Hallast P, Al Turki S, Martin HC, Xue Y, Tyler-Smith C. The genomic history of the Middle East. Cell 2021; 184:4612-4625.e14. [PMID: 34352227 PMCID: PMC8445022 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.07.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2021] [Revised: 05/17/2021] [Accepted: 07/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
The Middle East region is important to understand human evolution and migrations but is underrepresented in genomic studies. Here, we generated 137 high-coverage physically phased genome sequences from eight Middle Eastern populations using linked-read sequencing. We found no genetic traces of early expansions out-of-Africa in present-day populations but found Arabians have elevated Basal Eurasian ancestry that dilutes their Neanderthal ancestry. Population sizes within the region started diverging 15–20 kya, when Levantines expanded while Arabians maintained smaller populations that derived ancestry from local hunter-gatherers. Arabians suffered a population bottleneck around the aridification of Arabia 6 kya, while Levantines had a distinct bottleneck overlapping the 4.2 kya aridification event. We found an association between movement and admixture of populations in the region and the spread of Semitic languages. Finally, we identify variants that show evidence of selection, including polygenic selection. Our results provide detailed insights into the genomic and selective histories of the Middle East. Middle Easterners do not have ancestry from an early out-of-Africa expansion Basal Eurasian and African ancestry in Arabians deplete their Neanderthal ancestry Populations experienced bottlenecks overlapping aridification events Identification of recent single and polygenic signals of selection in Arabia
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohamed A Almarri
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SA, UK; Department of Forensic Science and Criminology, Dubai Police GHQ, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
| | - Marc Haber
- Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK; Centre for Computational Biology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
| | - Reem A Lootah
- Department of Forensic Science and Criminology, Dubai Police GHQ, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
| | - Pille Hallast
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SA, UK; Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu, Tartu 50411, Estonia
| | - Saeed Al Turki
- Translational Pathology, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, King Abdulaziz Medical City, Ministry of National Guard-Health Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Department of Genetics & Genomics, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
| | - Hilary C Martin
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SA, UK
| | - Yali Xue
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SA, UK
| | - Chris Tyler-Smith
- Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SA, UK
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40
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Ahlquist KD, Bañuelos MM, Funk A, Lai J, Rong S, Villanea FA, Witt KE. Our Tangled Family Tree: New Genomic Methods Offer Insight into the Legacy of Archaic Admixture. Genome Biol Evol 2021; 13:evab115. [PMID: 34028527 PMCID: PMC8480178 DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evab115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2021] [Revised: 05/07/2021] [Accepted: 05/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The archaic ancestry present in the human genome has captured the imagination of both scientists and the wider public in recent years. This excitement is the result of new studies pushing the envelope of what we can learn from the archaic genetic information that has survived for over 50,000 years in the human genome. Here, we review the most recent ten years of literature on the topic of archaic introgression, including the current state of knowledge on Neanderthal and Denisovan introgression, as well as introgression from other as-yet unidentified archaic populations. We focus this review on four topics: 1) a reimagining of human demographic history, including evidence for multiple admixture events between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other archaic populations; 2) state-of-the-art methods for detecting archaic ancestry in population-level genomic data; 3) how these novel methods can detect archaic introgression in modern African populations; and 4) the functional consequences of archaic gene variants, including how those variants were co-opted into novel function in modern human populations. The goal of this review is to provide a simple-to-access reference for the relevant methods and novel data, which has changed our understanding of the relationship between our species and its siblings. This body of literature reveals the large degree to which the genetic legacy of these extinct hominins has been integrated into the human populations of today.
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Affiliation(s)
- K D Ahlquist
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Mayra M Bañuelos
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Alyssa Funk
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Jiaying Lai
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Stephen Rong
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
| | - Fernando A Villanea
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado, USA
| | - Kelsey E Witt
- Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
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López S, Tarekegn A, Band G, van Dorp L, Bird N, Morris S, Oljira T, Mekonnen E, Bekele E, Blench R, Thomas MG, Bradman N, Hellenthal G. Evidence of the interplay of genetics and culture in Ethiopia. Nat Commun 2021; 12:3581. [PMID: 34117245 PMCID: PMC8196081 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23712-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2019] [Accepted: 05/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The rich linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity of Ethiopia provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand the level to which cultural factors correlate with-and shape-genetic structure in human populations. Using primarily new genetic variation data covering 1,214 Ethiopians representing 68 different ethnic groups, together with information on individuals' birthplaces, linguistic/religious practices and 31 cultural practices, we disentangle the effects of geographic distance, elevation, and social factors on the genetic structure of Ethiopians today. We provide evidence of associations between social behaviours and genetic differences among present-day peoples. We show that genetic similarity is broadly associated with linguistic affiliation, but also identify pronounced genetic similarity among groups from disparate language classifications that may in part be attributable to recent intermixing. We also illustrate how groups reporting the same culture traits are more genetically similar on average and show evidence of recent intermixing, suggesting that shared cultural traits may promote admixture. In addition to providing insights into the genetic structure and history of Ethiopia, we identify the most important cultural and geographic predictors of genetic differentiation and provide a resource for designing sampling protocols for future genetic studies involving Ethiopians.
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Affiliation(s)
- Saioa López
- Research Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, University College London, London, UK.
- UCL Genetics Institute, University College London, London, UK.
| | - Ayele Tarekegn
- Department of Archaeology and Heritage Management, College of Social Sciences, Addis Ababa University, New Classrooms (NCR) Building, Second Floor, Office No. 214, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
| | - Gavin Band
- Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Lucy van Dorp
- Research Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, University College London, London, UK
- UCL Genetics Institute, University College London, London, UK
| | - Nancy Bird
- Research Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, University College London, London, UK
- UCL Genetics Institute, University College London, London, UK
| | - Sam Morris
- Research Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, University College London, London, UK
- UCL Genetics Institute, University College London, London, UK
| | - Tamiru Oljira
- Genomics & Bioinformatics Research Directorate (GBRD), Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute (EBTi), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Ephrem Mekonnen
- Institute of Biotechnology, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Endashaw Bekele
- College of Natural and Computational Sciences, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
| | - Roger Blench
- McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Department of History, University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria
| | - Mark G Thomas
- Research Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, University College London, London, UK
- UCL Genetics Institute, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Garrett Hellenthal
- Research Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment, University College London, London, UK.
- UCL Genetics Institute, University College London, London, UK.
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The deep population history of northern East Asia from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene. Cell 2021; 184:3256-3266.e13. [PMID: 34048699 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.04.040] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2020] [Revised: 01/20/2021] [Accepted: 04/23/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
Northern East Asia was inhabited by modern humans as early as 40 thousand years ago (ka), as demonstrated by the Tianyuan individual. Using genome-wide data obtained from 25 individuals dated to 33.6-3.4 ka from the Amur region, we show that Tianyuan-related ancestry was widespread in northern East Asia before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). At the close of the LGM stadial, the earliest northern East Asian appeared in the Amur region, and this population is basal to ancient northern East Asians. Human populations in the Amur region have maintained genetic continuity from 14 ka, and these early inhabitants represent the closest East Asian source known for Ancient Paleo-Siberians. We also observed that EDAR V370A was likely to have been elevated to high frequency after the LGM, suggesting the possible timing for its selection. This study provides a deep look into the population dynamics of northern East Asia.
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43
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Genomic selection signatures in autism spectrum disorder identifies cognitive genomic tradeoff and its relevance in paradoxical phenotypes of deficits versus potentialities. Sci Rep 2021; 11:10245. [PMID: 33986442 PMCID: PMC8119484 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-89798-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/10/2020] [Accepted: 04/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by paradoxical phenotypes of deficits as well as gain in brain function. To address this a genomic tradeoff hypothesis was tested and followed up with the biological interaction and evolutionary significance of positively selected ASD risk genes. SFARI database was used to retrieve the ASD risk genes while for population datasets 1000 genome data was used. Common risk SNPs were subjected to machine learning as well as independent tests for selection, followed by Bayesian analysis to identify the cumulative effect of selection on risk SNPs. Functional implication of these positively selected risk SNPs was assessed and subjected to ontology analysis, pertaining to their interaction and enrichment of biological and cellular functions. This was followed by comparative analysis with the ancient genomes to identify their evolutionary patterns. Our results identified significant positive selection signals in 18 ASD risk SNPs. Functional and ontology analysis indicate the role of biological and cellular processes associated with various brain functions. The core of the biological interaction network constitutes genes for cognition and learning while genes in the periphery of the network had direct or indirect impact on brain function. Ancient genome analysis identified de novo and conserved evolutionary selection clusters. The de-novo evolutionary cluster represented genes involved in cognitive function. Relative enrichment of the ASD risk SNPs from the respective evolutionary cluster or biological interaction networks may help in addressing the phenotypic diversity in ASD. This cognitive genomic tradeoff signatures impacting the biological networks can explain the paradoxical phenotypes in ASD.
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Clemente F, Unterländer M, Dolgova O, Amorim CEG, Coroado-Santos F, Neuenschwander S, Ganiatsou E, Cruz Dávalos DI, Anchieri L, Michaud F, Winkelbach L, Blöcher J, Arizmendi Cárdenas YO, Sousa da Mota B, Kalliga E, Souleles A, Kontopoulos I, Karamitrou-Mentessidi G, Philaniotou O, Sampson A, Theodorou D, Tsipopoulou M, Akamatis I, Halstead P, Kotsakis K, Urem-Kotsou D, Panagiotopoulos D, Ziota C, Triantaphyllou S, Delaneau O, Jensen JD, Moreno-Mayar JV, Burger J, Sousa VC, Lao O, Malaspinas AS, Papageorgopoulou C. The genomic history of the Aegean palatial civilizations. Cell 2021; 184:2565-2586.e21. [PMID: 33930288 PMCID: PMC8127963 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2020] [Revised: 09/17/2020] [Accepted: 03/18/2021] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
The Cycladic, the Minoan, and the Helladic (Mycenaean) cultures define the Bronze Age (BA) of Greece. Urbanism, complex social structures, craft and agricultural specialization, and the earliest forms of writing characterize this iconic period. We sequenced six Early to Middle BA whole genomes, along with 11 mitochondrial genomes, sampled from the three BA cultures of the Aegean Sea. The Early BA (EBA) genomes are homogeneous and derive most of their ancestry from Neolithic Aegeans, contrary to earlier hypotheses that the Neolithic-EBA cultural transition was due to massive population turnover. EBA Aegeans were shaped by relatively small-scale migration from East of the Aegean, as evidenced by the Caucasus-related ancestry also detected in Anatolians. In contrast, Middle BA (MBA) individuals of northern Greece differ from EBA populations in showing ∼50% Pontic-Caspian Steppe-related ancestry, dated at ca. 2,600-2,000 BCE. Such gene flow events during the MBA contributed toward shaping present-day Greek genomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Florian Clemente
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Martina Unterländer
- Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Department of History and Ethnology, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece; Palaeogenetics Group, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany
| | - Olga Dolgova
- CNAG-CRG, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Baldiri Reixac 4, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
| | - Carlos Eduardo G Amorim
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Francisco Coroado-Santos
- CE3C, Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Samuel Neuenschwander
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Vital-IT, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Elissavet Ganiatsou
- Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Department of History and Ethnology, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece
| | - Diana I Cruz Dávalos
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Lucas Anchieri
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Frédéric Michaud
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Laura Winkelbach
- Palaeogenetics Group, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany
| | - Jens Blöcher
- Palaeogenetics Group, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany
| | - Yami Ommar Arizmendi Cárdenas
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Bárbara Sousa da Mota
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Eleni Kalliga
- Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Department of History and Ethnology, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece
| | - Angelos Souleles
- Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Department of History and Ethnology, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece
| | - Ioannis Kontopoulos
- Center for GeoGenetics, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark
| | | | - Olga Philaniotou
- Ephor Emerita of Antiquities, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, 10682 Athens, Greece
| | - Adamantios Sampson
- Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean, 85132 Rhodes, Greece
| | - Dimitra Theodorou
- Ephorate of Antiquities of Kozani, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, 50004 Kozani, Greece
| | - Metaxia Tsipopoulou
- Ephor Emerita of Antiquities, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, 10682 Athens, Greece
| | - Ioannis Akamatis
- Department of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Paul Halstead
- Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Minalloy House, 10-16 Regent St., Sheffield S1 3NJ, UK
| | - Kostas Kotsakis
- Department of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Dushka Urem-Kotsou
- Department of History and Ethnology, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece
| | - Diamantis Panagiotopoulos
- Institute of Classical Archaeology, University of Heidelberg, Marstallhof 4, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Christina Ziota
- Ephorate of Antiquities of Florina, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, 53100 Florina, Greece
| | - Sevasti Triantaphyllou
- Department of History and Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
| | - Olivier Delaneau
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Jeffrey D Jensen
- School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
| | - J Víctor Moreno-Mayar
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Center for GeoGenetics, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark; National Institute of Genomic Medicine (INMEGEN), 14610 Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Joachim Burger
- Palaeogenetics Group, Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany
| | - Vitor C Sousa
- CE3C, Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Oscar Lao
- CNAG-CRG, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Baldiri Reixac 4, 08028 Barcelona, Spain; Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain
| | - Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas
- Department of Computational Biology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
| | - Christina Papageorgopoulou
- Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Department of History and Ethnology, Democritus University of Thrace, 69100 Komotini, Greece.
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Abstract
Some of the genes responsible for the evolution of light skin pigmentation in Europeans show signals of positive selection in present-day populations. Recently, genome-wide association studies have highlighted the highly polygenic nature of skin pigmentation. It is unclear whether selection has operated on all of these genetic variants or just a subset. By studying variation in over a thousand ancient genomes from West Eurasia covering 40,000 y, we are able to study both the aggregate behavior of pigmentation-associated variants and the evolutionary history of individual variants. We find that the evolution of light skin pigmentation in Europeans was driven by frequency changes in a relatively small fraction of the genetic variants that are associated with variation in the trait today. Skin pigmentation is a classic example of a polygenic trait that has experienced directional selection in humans. Genome-wide association studies have identified well over a hundred pigmentation-associated loci, and genomic scans in present-day and ancient populations have identified selective sweeps for a small number of light pigmentation-associated alleles in Europeans. It is unclear whether selection has operated on all of the genetic variation associated with skin pigmentation as opposed to just a small number of large-effect variants. Here, we address this question using ancient DNA from 1,158 individuals from West Eurasia covering a period of 40,000 y combined with genome-wide association summary statistics from the UK Biobank. We find a robust signal of directional selection in ancient West Eurasians on 170 skin pigmentation-associated variants ascertained in the UK Biobank. However, we also show that this signal is driven by a limited number of large-effect variants. Consistent with this observation, we find that a polygenic selection test in present-day populations fails to detect selection with the full set of variants. Our data allow us to disentangle the effects of admixture and selection. Most notably, a large-effect variant at SLC24A5 was introduced to Western Europe by migrations of Neolithic farming populations but continued to be under selection post-admixture. This study shows that the response to selection for light skin pigmentation in West Eurasia was driven by a relatively small proportion of the variants that are associated with present-day phenotypic variation.
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46
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Laird MF, Sawchuk EA, Kwekason A, Mabulla AZP, Ndiema E, Tryon CA, Lewis JE, Ranhorn KL. Human burials at the Kisese II rockshelter, Tanzania. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2021; 175:187-200. [PMID: 33615431 PMCID: PMC8248353 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24253] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2020] [Revised: 12/04/2020] [Accepted: 01/29/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES The Late Pleistocene and early Holocene in eastern Africa are associated with complex evolutionary and demographic processes that contributed to the population variability observed in the region today. However, there are relatively few human skeletal remains from this time period. Here we describe six individuals from the Kisese II rockshelter in Tanzania that were excavated in 1956, present a radiocarbon date for one of the individuals, and compare craniodental morphological diversity among eastern African populations. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study used standard biometric analyses to assess the age, sex, and stature of the Kisese II individuals. Eastern African craniodental morphological variation was assessed using measures of dental size and a subset of Howells' cranial measurements for the Kisese II individuals as well as early Holocene, early pastoralist, Pastoral Neolithic, and modern African individuals. RESULTS Our results suggest a minimum of six individuals from the Kisese II collections with two adults and four juveniles. While the dating for most of the burials is uncertain, one individual is directly radiocarbon dated to ~7.1 ka indicating that at least one burial is early Holocene in age. Craniodental metric comparisons indicate that the Kisese II individuals extend the amount of human morphological diversity among Holocene eastern Africans. CONCLUSIONS Our findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that Late Pleistocene and early Holocene eastern Africans exhibited relatively high amounts of morphological diversity. However, the Kisese II individuals suggest morphological similarity at localized sites potentially supporting increased regionalization during the early Holocene.
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Affiliation(s)
- Myra F. Laird
- Department of Integrative Anatomical SciencesUniversity of Southern CaliforniaLos AngelesCaliforniaUSA
| | - Elizabeth A. Sawchuk
- Department of AnthropologyUniversity of AlbertaEdmontonAlbertaCanada
- Department of AnthropologyStony Brook UniversityStony BrookNew YorkUSA
| | | | - Audax Z. P. Mabulla
- Department of Archaeology and Heritage StudiesUniversity of Dar es SalaamDar es SalaamTanzania
| | - Emmanuel Ndiema
- Department of Earth SciencesNational Museums of KenyaNairobiKenya
| | - Christian A. Tryon
- Department of AnthropologyUniversity of Connecticut354 Mansfield Road, StorrsCTUSA
- Human Origins ProgramNational Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian InstitutionWashingtonDCUSA
| | - Jason E. Lewis
- Department of AnthropologyStony Brook UniversityStony BrookNew YorkUSA
- Turkana Basin InstituteStony Brook UniversityStony BrookNew YorkUSA
| | - Kathryn L. Ranhorn
- Institute of Human OriginsSchool of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State UniversityTempe, ArizonaUSA
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47
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African genetic diversity and adaptation inform a precision medicine agenda. Nat Rev Genet 2021; 22:284-306. [PMID: 33432191 DOI: 10.1038/s41576-020-00306-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 66] [Impact Index Per Article: 22.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 11/02/2020] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Abstract
The deep evolutionary history of African populations, since the emergence of modern humans more than 300,000 years ago, has resulted in high genetic diversity and considerable population structure. Selected genetic variants have increased in frequency due to environmental adaptation, but recent exposures to novel pathogens and changes in lifestyle render some of them with properties leading to present health liabilities. The unique discoverability potential from African genomic studies promises invaluable contributions to understanding the genomic and molecular basis of health and disease. Globally, African populations are understudied, and precision medicine approaches are largely based on data from European and Asian-ancestry populations, which limits the transferability of findings to the continent of Africa. Africa needs innovative precision medicine solutions based on African data that use knowledge and implementation strategies aligned to its climatic, cultural, economic and genomic diversity.
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48
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Hellenthal G, Bird N, Morris S. Structure and ancestry patterns of Ethiopians in genome-wide autosomal DNA. Hum Mol Genet 2021; 30:R42-R48. [PMID: 33547782 PMCID: PMC8242491 DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddab019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2020] [Revised: 12/28/2020] [Accepted: 01/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
We review some of the current insights derived from the analyses of new large-scale, genome-wide autosomal variation data studies incorporating Ethiopians. Consistent with their substantial degree of cultural and linguistic diversity, genetic diversity among Ethiopians is higher than that seen across much larger geographic regions worldwide. This genetic variation is associated in part with ethnic identity, geography and linguistic classification. Numerous and varied admixture events have been inferred in Ethiopian groups, for example, involving sources related to present-day groups in West Eurasia and North Africa, with inferred dates spanning a few hundred to more than 4500 years ago. These disparate inferred ancestry patterns are correlated in part with groups' broad linguistic classifications, though with some notable exceptions. While deciphering these complex genetic signals remains challenging with available data, these studies and other projects focused on resolving competing hypotheses on the origins of specific ethnolinguistic groups demonstrate how genetic analyses can complement findings from anthropological and linguistic studies on Ethiopians.
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Affiliation(s)
- Garrett Hellenthal
- Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London Genetics Institute (UGI), University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Nancy Bird
- Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London Genetics Institute (UGI), University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Sam Morris
- Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London Genetics Institute (UGI), University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
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49
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Hollfelder N, Breton G, Sjödin P, Jakobsson M. The deep population history in Africa. Hum Mol Genet 2021; 30:R2-R10. [PMID: 33438014 PMCID: PMC8117439 DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddab005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2020] [Revised: 12/22/2020] [Accepted: 01/05/2021] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Africa is the continent with the greatest genetic diversity among humans and the level of diversity is further enhanced by incorporating non-majority groups, which are often understudied. Many of today's minority populations historically practiced foraging lifestyles, which were the only subsistence strategies prior to the rise of agriculture and pastoralism, but only a few groups practicing these strategies remain today. Genomic investigations of Holocene human remains excavated across the African continent show that the genetic landscape was vastly different compared to today's genetic landscape and that many groups that today are population isolate inhabited larger regions in the past. It is becoming clear that there are periods of isolation among groups and geographic areas, but also genetic contact over large distances throughout human history in Africa. Genomic information from minority populations and from prehistoric remains provide an invaluable source of information on the human past, in particular deep human population history, as Holocene large-scale population movements obscure past patterns of population structure. Here we revisit questions on the nature and time of the radiation of early humans in Africa, the extent of gene-flow among human populations as well as introgression from archaic and extinct lineages on the continent.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nina Hollfelder
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18C, 75236 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Gwenna Breton
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18C, 75236 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Per Sjödin
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18C, 75236 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Mattias Jakobsson
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18C, 75236 Uppsala, Sweden
- Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Physical, Cnr Kingsway & University Roads, Auckland Park, Johannesburg 2092, South Africa
- SciLifeLab, Stockholm and Uppsala, Entrance C11, BMC, Husargatan 3, 752 37 Uppsala, Sweden
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50
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Sjödin P, McKenna J, Jakobsson M. Estimating divergence times from DNA sequences. Genetics 2021; 217:iyab008. [PMID: 33769498 PMCID: PMC8049563 DOI: 10.1093/genetics/iyab008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/15/2020] [Accepted: 12/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
The patterns of genetic variation within and among individuals and populations can be used to make inferences about the evolutionary forces that generated those patterns. Numerous population genetic approaches have been developed in order to infer evolutionary history. Here, we present the "Two-Two (TT)" and the "Two-Two-outgroup (TTo)" methods; two closely related approaches for estimating divergence time based in coalescent theory. They rely on sequence data from two haploid genomes (or a single diploid individual) from each of two populations. Under a simple population-divergence model, we derive the probabilities of the possible sample configurations. These probabilities form a set of equations that can be solved to obtain estimates of the model parameters, including population split times, directly from the sequence data. This transparent and computationally efficient approach to infer population divergence time makes it possible to estimate time scaled in generations (assuming a mutation rate), and not as a compound parameter of genetic drift. Using simulations under a range of demographic scenarios, we show that the method is relatively robust to migration and that the TTo method can alleviate biases that can appear from drastic ancestral population size changes. We illustrate the utility of the approaches with some examples, including estimating split times for pairs of human populations as well as providing further evidence for the complex relationship among Neandertals and Denisovans and their ancestors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Per Sjödin
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18 A, Uppsala 752 36, Sweden
| | - James McKenna
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18 A, Uppsala 752 36, Sweden
| | - Mattias Jakobsson
- Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18 A, Uppsala 752 36, Sweden
- Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18 A, Uppsala 752 36, Sweden
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