Hunter-gatherer admixture facilitated natural selection in Neolithic European farmers.

ABSTRACT: Ancient DNA has revealed multiple episodes of admixture in human prehistory during geographic expansions associated with cultural innovations. One important example is the expansion of Neolithic agricultural groups out of the Near East into Europe and their consequent admixture with Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.^1,2,3,4 Ancient genomes from this period provide an opportunity to study the role of admixture in providing new genetic variation for selection to act upon, and also to identify genomic regions that resisted hunter-gatherer introgression and may thus have contributed to agricultural adaptations. We used genome-wide DNA from 677 individuals spanning Mesolithic and Neolithic Europe to infer ancestry deviations

SUBMITTER: Davy T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10153476 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature