RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 AN ADMIXTURE SIGNAL IN ARMENIANS AROUND THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE REVEALS WIDESPREAD POPULATION MOVEMENT ACROSS THE MIDDLE EAST
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.06.24.168781
DO 10.1101/2020.06.24.168781
A1 Anahit Hovhannisyan
A1 Eppie Jones
A1 Pierpaolo Maisano Delser
A1 Joshua Schraiber
A1 Anna Hakobyan
A1 Ashot Margaryan
A1 Peter Hrechdakian
A1 Hovhannes Sahakyan
A1 Lehti Saag
A1 Zaruhi Khachatryan
A1 Levon Yepiskoposyan
A1 Andrea Manica
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/24/2020.06.24.168781.abstract
AB The Armenians, a population inhabiting the region in West Asia known as the Armenian Highland, has been argued to show a remarkable degree of population continuity since the Early Neolithic. Here we test the degree of continuity of this population as well as its plausible origin, by collating modern and ancient genomic data, and adding a number of novel contemporary genomes. We show that Armenians have indeed remained unadmixed through the Neolithic and at least until the first part of the Bronze Age, and fail to find any support for historical suggestions by Herodotus of an input from the Balkans. However, we do detect a genetic input of Sardinian-like ancestry during or just after the Middle-Late Bronze Age. A similar input at approximately the same time was detected in East Africa, suggesting large-scale movement both North and South of the Middle East. Whether such large-scale population movement was a result of climatic or cultural changes is unclear, as well as the true source of gene flow remains an open question that needs to be addressed in future ancient DNA studies.Competing Interest StatementWe declare that we have competing interests