The research results of Wang Ke's group: genome analysis of Siberia 7500 years ago revealed close genetic connections between Holocene North Asian populations

On January 12, 2023, the internationally renowned academic journal Current Biology The journal publishes the ancient DNA research results co-completed by Wang Ke, a young researcher of our institute, as the first author and co-corresponding author" Middle Holocene Siberian genomes reveal highly connected gene pools throughout North Asia”
。 The study used ten ancient genomes from the Altai Mountains, the Far East and the Kamchatra Peninsula to interpret the mixing of populations in Eurasia and ancient migration across Eurasia and the Americas with newly generated ancient whole-genome data
.

The northern part of Eurasia is sparsely populated, and the history of migration and mixing of its populations is not clear, and paleogenomic research in the region is even rarer
.
However, due to its vast territory and the fact that early populations must pass through the American continent, North Asia has become an unavoidable key area
for paleogenetic research.

The study focused on ancient hunter-gatherer populations living in the early Holocene, dating back 7,500 years to the Altai Mountains (Figure 1).

The study found that this population represents an undiscovered ancestral structure, and its population ancestors are derived from the Paleolithic Siberian population and ancient North Eurasian (ANE) who lived during the last glacial age Mixing
.
At the same time, it was found that this population made key genetic contributions to later nomadic populations, including the Bronze Age Okunev population, the Lushi population of Mongolia, and the Xiaohe population of the Tarim Basin (Figure 2, red component).

Figure 1 Geographical distribution map and genetic component distribution of ancient populations in Eurasia

The Altai region is known for finding ancient humans such as Denisovans and Neanderthals in paleogenomic studies, but surprisingly, the study found that modern humans from the past who lived in the region were also genetically and culturally diverse
.
The study found that in addition to local hunter-gatherer populations, there were also populations with ancient northeast Asian (ANA) ancestral components in
the region.
An Altai ancient individual living at the same time as hunter-gatherers, the burial objects were filled with unique shamanic elements with ancestral origins dating back to ANA (Figure 2, green composition).

The findings of this study extend the distribution of ANA components in Eurasia from Northeast Asia to the west by 1500 km to the vicinity of the
Altai Mountains.
The surprise of this discovery is that ancient populations in the same region and at the same time period had different genetic and cultural components, showing the past genetic and cultural diversity
of the region.

The study also found a genetic link between the Jomon population in the Far East 7,000 years ago and Japan (Figure 2, orange composition), and the ancient genome of the Kamchatra Peninsula records the past The 5,000-year calendar reverses gene flow
from the Americas back to Eurasia.
Professor Posth, co-corresponding author, said that the contribution of Altai populations to the surrounding area revealed the mobility of these local hunter-gatherer populations
.
The study, based on the newly published ancient Siberian genome, combined with published data, highlights that ancient populations in North Asia have a largely interconnected gene pool since the Holocene
.

Figure 2 Cross-continental distribution of ancestral components (green) of Paleo-Northeast Asian populations

Professor Johannes Krause, co-corresponding author of the paper (Director of Archaeological Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology), said: "Our study shows that migration and mixing of populations has historically been the norm, and that there has been a high degree of genetic exchange
between populations in central and northern Eurasia during the Holocene.
”

Overall, the study's newly published ancient North Asian genome found genetic exchanges
between Eurasian populations dating back 10,000 years across half of the Siberian continent.
Although paleogenomic data come from the distant Altai Mountains and the Far East, the migration and mixing of populations revealed in this study do not stop at geographical barriers, which provides a key evidence and data basis
for further research on the formation of genetic structure and gene exchange between populations in early Asia.

The research work was carried out by Wang Ke, a young researcher at the School of Life Sciences at Fudan University, Professor J ohannes Krause at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany, and Cosimo Posth, from the School of Archaeology at the University of Tübingen, Germany Professors work together
.
Wang Ke is the first author and co-corresponds
with Johannes Krause and Cosimo Posth.

Original link: style="margin-bottom:0in;">