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The Arrival of Steppe and Iranian Related Ancestry in the Islands of the Western Mediterranean

View ORCID ProfileDaniel M. Fernandes, Alissa Mittnik, Iñigo Olalde, Iosif Lazaridis, Olivia Cheronet, Nadin Rohland, Swapan Mallick, Rebecca Bernardos, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Jens Carlsson, Brendan J. Culleton, Matthew Ferry, Beatriz Gamarra, Martina Lari, Matthew Mah, Megan Michel, Alessandra Modi, Mario Novak, Jonas Oppenheimer, Kendra A. Sirak, Kirstin Stewardson, Stefania Vai, View ORCID ProfileEdgard Camarós, Carla Calò, Giulio Catalano, Marian Cueto, Vincenza Forgia, Marina Lozano, Elisabetta Marini, Margherita Micheletti, Roberto M. Miccichè, Maria R. Palombo, Damià Ramis, Vittoria Schimmenti, View ORCID ProfilePau Sureda, Luís Teira, Maria Teschler-Nicola, Douglas J. Kennett, Carles Lalueza-Fox, Nick Patterson, Luca Sineo, David Caramelli, Ron Pinhasi, View ORCID ProfileDavid Reich
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/584714
Daniel M. Fernandes
1Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
2Earth Institute and School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland
3CIAS, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal
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  • ORCID record for Daniel M. Fernandes
  • For correspondence: daniel.fernandes@univie.ac.at david.caramelli@unifi.it ron.pinhasi@univie.ac.at reich@genetics.med.harvard.edu
Alissa Mittnik
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Iñigo Olalde
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Iosif Lazaridis
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Olivia Cheronet
1Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
2Earth Institute and School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland
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Nadin Rohland
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Swapan Mallick
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
5Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
6Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
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Rebecca Bernardos
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
5Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Jens Carlsson
7Area 52 Research Group, School of Biology and Environmental Science/Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland
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Brendan J. Culleton
8Institutes for Energy and the Environment, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
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Matthew Ferry
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
5Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Beatriz Gamarra
2Earth Institute and School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland
9Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), 43007 Tarragona, Spain
10Department of History and History of Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), 43002 Tarragona, Spain
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Martina Lari
11Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Firenze, 50122 Florence, Italy
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Matthew Mah
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
5Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
6Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
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Megan Michel
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
5Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Alessandra Modi
11Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Firenze, 50122 Florence, Italy
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Mario Novak
2Earth Institute and School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland
12Institute for Anthropological Research, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
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Jonas Oppenheimer
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
5Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Kendra A. Sirak
2Earth Institute and School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Kirstin Stewardson
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
5Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
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Stefania Vai
11Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Firenze, 50122 Florence, Italy
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Edgard Camarós
13Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria, Universidad de Cantabria-Gobierno de Cantabria-Banco Santander, 39005 Santander, Spain
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Carla Calò
14Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Section of Neuroscience and Anthropology, University of Cagliari, 09124 Cagliari, Italy
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Giulio Catalano
15Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche Chimiche e Farmaceutiche, Università di Palermo, 90123 Palermo, Italy
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Marian Cueto
13Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria, Universidad de Cantabria-Gobierno de Cantabria-Banco Santander, 39005 Santander, Spain
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Vincenza Forgia
16Dipartimento di Cultura e Società, Università di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
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Marina Lozano
9Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), 43007 Tarragona, Spain
10Department of History and History of Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), 43002 Tarragona, Spain
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Elisabetta Marini
14Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, Section of Neuroscience and Anthropology, University of Cagliari, 09124 Cagliari, Italy
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Margherita Micheletti
17Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e Biologia dei Sistemi, Università di Torino, 10123 Torino, Italy
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Roberto M. Miccichè
15Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche Chimiche e Farmaceutiche, Università di Palermo, 90123 Palermo, Italy
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Maria R. Palombo
18Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Sapienza Università di Roma, 00185 Rome, Italy
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Damià Ramis
19Independent researcher, Moragues 34, 07006 Palma de Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain
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Vittoria Schimmenti
20Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas, 90133 Palermo, Italy
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Pau Sureda
21Instituto de Ciencias del Patrimonio (Incipit-CSIC), 15705 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
22McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Homerton College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
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Luís Teira
13Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria, Universidad de Cantabria-Gobierno de Cantabria-Banco Santander, 39005 Santander, Spain
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Maria Teschler-Nicola
1Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
23Department of Anthropology, Natural History Museum Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria
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Douglas J. Kennett
24Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
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Carles Lalueza-Fox
25Institute of Evolutionary Biology, CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
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Nick Patterson
6Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
26Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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Luca Sineo
15Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche Chimiche e Farmaceutiche, Università di Palermo, 90123 Palermo, Italy
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David Caramelli
11Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Firenze, 50122 Florence, Italy
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  • For correspondence: daniel.fernandes@univie.ac.at david.caramelli@unifi.it ron.pinhasi@univie.ac.at reich@genetics.med.harvard.edu
Ron Pinhasi
1Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
2Earth Institute and School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland
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  • For correspondence: daniel.fernandes@univie.ac.at david.caramelli@unifi.it ron.pinhasi@univie.ac.at reich@genetics.med.harvard.edu
David Reich
4Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
5Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
6Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA
27Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean, Cambridge, MA, 02138.
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  • For correspondence: daniel.fernandes@univie.ac.at david.caramelli@unifi.it ron.pinhasi@univie.ac.at reich@genetics.med.harvard.edu
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Abstract

A series of studies have documented how Steppe pastoralist-related ancestry reached central Europe by at least 2500 BCE, while Iranian farmer-related ancestry was present in Aegean Europe by at least 1900 BCE. However, the spread of these ancestries into the western Mediterranean where they have contributed to many populations living today remains poorly understood. We generated genome-wide ancient DNA from the Balearic Islands, Sicily, and Sardinia, increasing the number of individuals with reported data from these islands from 3 to 52. We obtained data from the oldest skeleton excavated from the Balearic islands (dating to ∼2400 BCE), and show that this individual had substantial Steppe pastoralist-derived ancestry; however, later Balearic individuals had less Steppe heritage reflecting geographic heterogeneity or immigration from groups with more European first farmer-related ancestry. In Sicily, Steppe pastoralist ancestry arrived by ∼2200 BCE and likely came at least in part from Spain as it was associated with Iberian-specific Y chromosomes. In Sicily, Iranian-related ancestry also arrived by the Middle Bronze Age, thus revealing that this ancestry type, which was ubiquitous in the Aegean by this time, also spread further west prior to the classical period of Greek expansion. In Sardinia, we find no evidence of either eastern ancestry type in the Nuragic Bronze Age, but show that Iranian-related ancestry arrived by at least ∼300 BCE and Steppe ancestry arrived by ∼300 CE, joined at that time or later by North African ancestry. These results falsify the view that the people of Sardinia are isolated descendants of Europe’s first farmers. Instead, our results show that the island’s admixture history since the Bronze Age is as complex as that in many other parts of Europe.

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The Arrival of Steppe and Iranian Related Ancestry in the Islands of the Western Mediterranean
Daniel M. Fernandes, Alissa Mittnik, Iñigo Olalde, Iosif Lazaridis, Olivia Cheronet, Nadin Rohland, Swapan Mallick, Rebecca Bernardos, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Jens Carlsson, Brendan J. Culleton, Matthew Ferry, Beatriz Gamarra, Martina Lari, Matthew Mah, Megan Michel, Alessandra Modi, Mario Novak, Jonas Oppenheimer, Kendra A. Sirak, Kirstin Stewardson, Stefania Vai, Edgard Camarós, Carla Calò, Giulio Catalano, Marian Cueto, Vincenza Forgia, Marina Lozano, Elisabetta Marini, Margherita Micheletti, Roberto M. Miccichè, Maria R. Palombo, Damià Ramis, Vittoria Schimmenti, Pau Sureda, Luís Teira, Maria Teschler-Nicola, Douglas J. Kennett, Carles Lalueza-Fox, Nick Patterson, Luca Sineo, David Caramelli, Ron Pinhasi, David Reich
bioRxiv 584714; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/584714
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The Arrival of Steppe and Iranian Related Ancestry in the Islands of the Western Mediterranean
Daniel M. Fernandes, Alissa Mittnik, Iñigo Olalde, Iosif Lazaridis, Olivia Cheronet, Nadin Rohland, Swapan Mallick, Rebecca Bernardos, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Jens Carlsson, Brendan J. Culleton, Matthew Ferry, Beatriz Gamarra, Martina Lari, Matthew Mah, Megan Michel, Alessandra Modi, Mario Novak, Jonas Oppenheimer, Kendra A. Sirak, Kirstin Stewardson, Stefania Vai, Edgard Camarós, Carla Calò, Giulio Catalano, Marian Cueto, Vincenza Forgia, Marina Lozano, Elisabetta Marini, Margherita Micheletti, Roberto M. Miccichè, Maria R. Palombo, Damià Ramis, Vittoria Schimmenti, Pau Sureda, Luís Teira, Maria Teschler-Nicola, Douglas J. Kennett, Carles Lalueza-Fox, Nick Patterson, Luca Sineo, David Caramelli, Ron Pinhasi, David Reich
bioRxiv 584714; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/584714

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