<div dir="ltr"><h1 itemprop="headline" id="story-heading" class="">DNA Deciphers Roots of Modern Europeans</h1>
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JUNE 10, 2015
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<span class="">A male skeleton associated with the Yamnaya culture near Samara, Russia.</span>
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<span class="">Credit</span>
Pavel Kuznetsov </span>
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<span itemprop="author creator" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
<span class="" itemprop="name">Carl Zimmer</span>
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/column/matter">MATTER</a> </p>
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</div><p class="" itemprop="articleBody" id="story-continues-1">For
centuries, archaeologists have reconstructed the early history of
Europe by digging up ancient settlements and examining the items that
their inhabitants left behind. More recently, researchers have been
scrutinizing something even more revealing than pots, chariots and
swords: DNA.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">On Wednesday in the journal Nature, two teams of scientists — one based at the University of Copenhagen and one based at <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/harvard_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about Harvard University." class="">Harvard University</a>
— presented the largest studies to date of ancient European DNA,
extracted from 170 skeletons found in countries from Spain to Russia.
Both studies indicate that today’s Europeans descend from three groups
who moved into Europe at different stages of history.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">The
first were hunter-gatherers who arrived some 45,000 years ago in
Europe. Then came farmers who arrived from the Near East about 8,000
years ago.</p>
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<p class="" itemprop="articleBody">Finally,
a group of nomadic sheepherders from western Russia called the Yamnaya
arrived about 4,500 years ago. The authors of the new studies also
suggest that the Yamnaya language may have given rise to many of the
languages spoken in Europe today.</p>
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<span class="">A Yamnaya skull found near
Samara, Russia, colored with ocher. Yamnaya expansion into Europe was
most likely relatively peaceful.</span>
<span class="" itemprop="copyrightHolder">
<span class="">Credit</span>
Natalia Shishlina </span>
<p class="" itemprop="articleBody">Ron
Pinhasi, an archaeologist at University College Dublin who was not
involved in either study, said that the new studies were “a major
game-changer. To me, it marks a new phase in ancient DNA research.”</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">The two teams worked independently, studying different skeletons and using different methods to analyze their DNA.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">The
Harvard team collected DNA from 69 human remains dating back 8,000
years and cataloged the genetic variations at almost 400,000 different
points. The Copenhagen team collected DNA from 101 skeletons dating back
about 3,400 years and sequenced the entire genomes.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">Both
teams also compared the newly sequenced DNA to genes retrieved from
other ancient Europeans and Asians, and to living humans.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">Until
about 9,000 years ago, Europe was home to a genetically distinct
population of hunter-gatherers, the researchers found. Then, between
9,000 and 7,000 years ago, the genetic profiles of the inhabitants in
some parts of Europe abruptly changed, acquiring DNA from Near Eastern
populations.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody" id="story-continues-2">Archaeologists
have long known that farming practices spread into Europe at the time
from Turkey. But the new evidence shows that it wasn’t just the ideas
that spread — the farmers did, too.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">The
hunter-gatherers didn’t disappear, however. They managed to survive in
pockets across Europe between the farming communities.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">“It’s
an amazing cultural process,” said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard
Medical School who led the university’s team. “You have groups which
are as genetically distinct as Europeans and East Asians. And they’re
living side by side for thousands of years.”</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody" id="story-continues-3">Between
7,000 and 5,000 years ago, however, hunter-gatherer DNA began turning
up in the genes of European farmers. “There’s a breakdown of these
cultural barriers, and they mix,” said Dr. Reich.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">About
4,500 years ago, the final piece of Europe’s genetic puzzle fell into
place. A new infusion of DNA arrived — one that is still very common in
living Europeans, especially in central and northern Europe.</p><div class=""><div class="">
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</div><p class="" itemprop="articleBody" id="story-continues-4">The
closest match to this new DNA, both teams of scientists found, comes
from skeletons found in Yamnaya graves in western Russia and Ukraine.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">Archaeologists
have long been fascinated by the Yamnaya, who left behind artifacts on
the steppes of western Russia and Ukraine dating from 5,300 to 4,600
years ago. The Yamnaya used horses to manage huge herds of sheep, and
followed their livestock across the steppes with wagons full of food and
water.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">It
was an immensely successful way of life, allowing the Yamnaya to build
huge funeral mounds for their dead, which they filled with jewelry,
weapons and even entire chariots.</p>
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<span class="">A skeleton buried by a Middle
Neolithic culture found near Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. A review of DNA
from skeletons across Europe indicated that today's Europeans are
descended from three groups who moved there at different stages of
history.</span>
<span class="" itemprop="copyrightHolder">
<span class="">Credit</span>
Juraj Lipták/LDA Sachsen-Anhalt </span>
<p class="" itemprop="articleBody">David
W. Anthony, an archaeologist at Hartwick College and a co-author on the
Harvard study, said it was likely that the expansion of Yamnaya into
Europe was relatively peaceful. “It wasn’t Attila the Hun coming in and
killing everybody,” he said.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">Instead,
Dr. Anthony thought the most likely scenario was that the Yamnaya
“entered into some kind of stable opposition” with the resident
Europeans that lasted for a few centuries. But then gradually the
barriers between the cultures eroded.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">The
Copenhagen team’s study suggests that the Yamnaya didn’t just expand
west into Europe, however. The scientists examined DNA from
4,700-year-old skeletons from a Siberian culture called the Afanasievo.
It turns out that they inherited Yamnaya DNA, too.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody" id="story-continues-5">Dr.
Anthony was surprised by the possibility that Yamnaya pushed out over a
range of about 4,000 miles. “I myself have a hard time wrapping my head
around explanations for that,” he said.</p>
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<h2 class="">Recent Comments</h2>
<div class="">
<h2 class="">RPB</h2>
22 hours ago
<p class="">Ah, the cultural backlash against science. Stop
whining and crying.Oops, I guess I'll get kicked out along with the rest
of the nobel...</p>
<h2 class="">Dudie Katani</h2>
22 hours ago
<p class="">You all have it wrong. The ancestors of the
Europeans were not who is claimed sin the article but little green(
men and women from the...</p>
<h2 class="">poslug</h2>
22 hours ago
<p class="">Rivers and population remains
dating/distribution would be interesting here. The Danube presented a
considerable barrier in the Roman era to...</p>
</div>
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See All Comments
</li><li class="">Write a comment</li></ul>
<p class="" itemprop="articleBody" id="story-continues-6">The
two studies also add new fuel to a debate about how languages spread
across Europe and Asia. Most European tongues belong to the
Indo-European family, which also incudes languages in southern and
Central Asia.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">For decades, linguists have <a title="Times article." href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/science/new-light-on-the-roots-of-english.html">debated how Indo-European got to Europe</a>.
Some favor the idea that the original farmers brought Indo-European
into Europe from Turkey. Others think the language came from the Russian
steppes thousands of years later.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">The
new genetic results won’t settle the debate, said Eske Willerslev, an
evolutionary biologist at Copenhagen University who led the Danish team.
But he did think the results were consistent with the idea that the
Yamnaya brought Indo-European from the steppes to Europe.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">The
eastward expansion of Yamnaya, evident in the genetic findings, also
supports the theory, Dr. Willerslev said. Linguists have long puzzled
over an Indo-European language once spoken in western China called
Tocharian. It is only known from 1,200-year-old manuscripts discovered
in ancient desert towns. It is possible that Tocharian was a vestige of
the eastern spread of the Yamnaya.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">“We
can just say that the expansion fits very well with the geographical
spread of the Indo-European language,” said Dr. Willerslev.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">Paul
Heggarty, a linguist at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary
Anthropology, said that the new studies were important, but were still
too limited to settle the debate over the origins of Indo-European. “I
don’t think we’re there yet,” he said.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">Dr.
Heggarty noted that the studies showed the arrival of Yamnaya in
Central Europe about 4,500 years ago. But Greek is an Indo-European
language, and the oldest evidence of writing in Europe shows that Greek
had developed about 3,500 years ago. By then, it was distinct from other
Indo-European languages in Southern Europe, like Latin.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">If
the Yamnaya were the source of Indo-European languages, they would have
had to get to southern Europe soon after they made it to Central
Europe.</p></div><p class="" itemprop="articleBody" id="story-continues-7">Dr.
Heggarty speculated instead that early European farmers, the second
wave of immigrants, may have brought Indo-European to Europe from the
Near East. Then, thousands of years later, the Yamnaya brought the
language again to Central Europe.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">More
ancient DNA could swing the balance of evidence in favor of one theory
over the other, Dr. Heggarty said. A stronger case for a steppe origin
of Indo-European might emerge, for example, if scientists discovered
that Greeks around 4,500 years ago abruptly acquired Yamnaya DNA.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody">“Let’s see whether they look like the steppe people or not,” he said.</p><p class="" itemprop="articleBody"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/science/dna-deciphers-roots-of-modern-europeans.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-middle-span-region®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-middle-span-region">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/science/dna-deciphers-roots-of-modern-europeans.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-middle-span-region®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-middle-span-region</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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