TY - JOUR T1 - Genomic and dietary transitions during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in Sicily JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.03.11.986158 SP - 2020.03.11.986158 AU - Marieke S. van de Loosdrecht AU - Marcello A. Mannino AU - Sahra Talamo AU - Vanessa Villalba-Mouco AU - Cosimo Posth AU - Franziska Aron AU - Guido Brandt AU - Marta Burri AU - Cäcilia Freund AU - Rita Radzeviciute AU - Raphaela Stahl AU - Antje Wissgott AU - Lysann Klausnitzer AU - Sarah Nagel AU - Matthias Meyer AU - Antonio Tagliacozzo AU - Marcello Piperno AU - Sebastiano Tusa AU - Carmine Collina AU - Vittoria Schimmenti AU - Rosaria Di Salvo AU - Kay Prüfer AU - Jean-Jacques Hublin AU - Stephan Schiffels AU - Choongwon Jeong AU - Wolfgang Haak AU - Johannes Krause Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/03/12/2020.03.11.986158.abstract N2 - Southern Italy is a key region for understanding the agricultural transition in the Mediterranean due to its central position. We present a genomic transect for 19 prehistoric Sicilians that covers the Early Mesolithic to Early Neolithic period. We find that the Early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (HGs) are a highly drifted sister lineage to Early Holocene western European HGs, whereas a quarter of the Late Mesolithic HGs ancestry is related to HGs from eastern Europe and the Near East. This indicates substantial gene flow from (south-)eastern Europe between the Early and Late Mesolithic. The Early Neolithic farmers are genetically most similar to those from the Balkan and Greece, and carry only a maximum of ∼7% ancestry from Sicilian Mesolithic HGs. Ancestry changes match changes in dietary profile and material culture, except for two individuals who may provide tentative initial evidence that HGs adopted elements of farming in Sicily.One-sentence summary Genome-wide and isotopic data from prehistoric Sicilians reveal a pre-farming connection to (south-) eastern Europe, and tentative initial evidence that hunter-gatherers adopted some Neolithic aspects prior to near-total replacement by early farmers. ER -