Genetic ancestry changes in Stone to Bronze Age transition in the East European plain
Lehti Saag, Lehti Saag, Sergey Vasilyev, Liivi Varul, Natalia V. Kosorukova, Dmitri V. Gerasimov, Svetlana Viktorovna Oshibkina, Samuel J. Griffith, Anu Solnik, Lauri Saag, Lauri Saag, Eugenia D’Atanasio, Ene Metspalu, Maere Reidla, Siiri Rootsi, Toomas Kivisild, Christiana L. Scheib, Kristiina Tambets, Айвар Крийска, Mait Metspalu
Abstract
The transition from Stone to Bronze Age in Central and Western Europe was a period of major population movements originating from the Ponto-Caspian Steppe. Here, we report new genome-wide sequence data from 30 individuals north of this area, from the understudied western part of present-day Russia, including 3 Stone Age hunter-gatherers (10,800 to 4250 cal BCE) and 26 Bronze Age farmers from the Corded Ware complex Fatyanovo Culture (2900 to 2050 cal BCE). We show that Eastern hunter-gatherer ancestry was present in northwestern Russia already from around 10,000 BCE. Furthermore, we see a change in ancestry with the arrival of farming-Fatyanovo Culture individuals were genetically similar to other Corded Ware cultures, carrying a mixture of Steppe and European early farmer ancestry. Thus, they likely originate from a fast migration toward the northeast from somewhere near modern-day Ukraine-the closest area where these ancestries coexisted from around 3000 BCE.