The rise and transformation of Bronze Age pastoralists in the Caucasus

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ghalichi, Ayshin; Reinhold, Sabine; Rohrlach, Adam B.; Kalmykov, Alexey A.; Childebayeva, Ainash; Yu, He; Aron, Franziska; Semerau, Lena; Bastert-Lamprichs, Katrin; Belinskiy, Andrey B.; Berezina, Natalia Y.; Berezin, Yakov B.; Broomandkhoshbacht, Nasreen; Buzhilova, Alexandra P.; Erlikh, Vladimir R.; Fehren-Schmitz, Lars; Gambashidze, Irina; Kantorovich, Anatoliy R.; Kolesnichenko, Konstantin B.; Lordkipanidze, David; Magomedov, Rabadan G.; Malek-Custodis, Katharina; Mariaschk, Dirk; Maslov, Vladimir E.; Mkrtchyan, Levon; Nagler, Anatoli; Fazeli Nashli, Hassan; Ochir, Maria; Piotrovskiy, Yuri Y.; Saribekyan, Mariam; Sheremetev, Aleksandr G.; Stoellner, Thomas; Thomalsky, Judith; Vardanyan, Benik; Posth, Cosimo; Krause, Johannes; Warinner, Christina; Hansen, Svend; Haak, Wolfgang
• 署名单位: Max Planck Society; University of Adelaide; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; Peking University; Lomonosov Moscow State University; Federal State Institution of Scientific Research Institute of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia; Lomonosov Moscow State University; University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz; University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz; Lomonosov Moscow State University; Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University; Russian Academy of Sciences; Russian Academy of Sciences; Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences; National Academy of Sciences of Armenia; Institute of Archaeology & Ethnography - NAS RA; University of Tehran; Kalmyk Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Russian Academy of Sciences; State Hermitage Museum; Ruhr University Bochum; Leibniz Association; Deutsches Bergbau Museum Bochum (DBM); National Academy of Sciences of Armenia; Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen; Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen; Leibniz Association; Senckenberg Gesellschaft fur Naturforschung (SGN); Friedrich Schiller University of Jena; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: Nature
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-6788
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08113-5
• 发表日期: 2024-11-28
• 关键词: ancient human genomes; library preparation; HISTORY; dna; ancestry; patterns; sequence; migration; efficient; admixture

摘要

The Caucasus and surrounding areas, with their rich metal resources, became a crucible of the Bronze Age1 and the birthplace of the earliest steppe pastoralist societies2. Yet, despite this region having a large influence on the subsequent development of Europe and Asia, questions remain regarding its hunter-gatherer past and its formation of expansionist mobile steppe societies3-5. Here we present new genome-wide data for 131 individuals from 38 archaeological sites spanning 6,000 years. We find a strong genetic differentiation between populations north and south of the Caucasus mountains during the Mesolithic, with Eastern hunter-gatherer ancestry4,6 in the north, and a distinct Caucasus hunter-gatherer ancestry7 with increasing East Anatolian farmer admixture in the south. During the subsequent Eneolithic period, we observe the formation of the characteristic West Eurasian steppe ancestry and heightened interaction between the mountain and steppe regions, facilitated by technological developments of the Maykop cultural complex8. By contrast, the peak of pastoralist activities and territorial expansions during the Early and Middle Bronze Age is characterized by long-term genetic stability. The Late Bronze Age marks another period of gene flow from multiple distinct sources that coincides with a decline of steppe cultures, followed by a transformation and absorption of the steppe ancestry into highland populations. A study presents archaeogenomic data for 131 individuals from 38 sites spanning 6,000 years, and details the demographic processes of the Caucasus and the surrounding steppe zone throughout the Bronze Age.