Ancient DNA maps ‘dawn of farming’

Nature ^

[FarCenter]

Sometime before 12,000 years ago, nomadic hunter-gatherers in the Middle East made one of the most important transitions in human history: they began staying put and took to farming.

A pair of ancient-DNA studies1,2 — including one of the largest assemblages of ancient human genomes yet published — has homed in on the identity of the hunter-gatherers who settled down.

Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that humans first took to farming in the Middle East. This transition — which also later occurred independently in other parts of the world — is known as the Neolithic revolution, and is linked to the first domestic plants and animals.

Previous ancient-genomics studies3 have hinted at complex origins for Middle Eastern farmers, involving geographically distinct groups of hunter-gatherers with varying genetic legacies.

Europe’s first farming populations descend mostly from farmers in the Anatolian peninsula, in what is now Turkey. “What happened before they started to migrate and propagate farming into Anatolia and Europe?” asks Laurent Excoffier, a population geneticist at the University of Bern.

To tackle this question, a team co-led by Excoffier sequenced the genomes of 15 hunter-gatherers and early farmers who lived in southwest Asia and Europe, along one of the main migration routes early farmers took into Europe — the Danube River. The remains came from several archaeological sites, including some of the first farming villages in western Anatolia.

The researchers generated ‘high coverage’, or high-quality, genomes — a rarity in ancient-genomics work. This allowed them to plumb the data for demographic details, such as shifts in population size, that are ordinarily outside the remit of ancient-DNA studies based on less complete genomes.

[blam]

"Once you get Dogs and Horses you get to the Mongol Empire."

No-one was penetrating the deep steppe until horses were domesticated and could haul enough supplies to operate there.

[Adder]

Well, I certainly hope it was organic farming...

[Verginius Rufus]

Xenophon's Anabasis describes the journey of the 10,000 Greek mercenaries originally hired by Cyrus the Younger along the coast of the Black Sea. There were some Greek cities there along with various barbarian peoples. Very interesting reading. This was in 400 B.C., before Alexander the Great.

[Red Badger]

Also the ‘dawn’ of tooth decay and colitis.................

[SunkenCiv]

Both of those resulted from the reduction of infant mortality and greatly increased lifespans due to improved nutrition via a stable food supply.