DNA Of Modern Europeans Can Be Traced Back To Three Ancient Tribes

September 18, 2014

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

A comparison of nine ancient genomes to those of modern humans has revealed that present-day Europeans descended from at least three distinct groups of ancient humans, not two as previously believed.

Researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Harvard Medical School, the University of Tbingen in Germany and an international team of colleagues found that modern Europeans derived from three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Paleolithic Siberians, and early European farmers who were primarily of Near Eastern origin.

As the researchers explained in the September 18 edition of the journal Nature, the ancient north Eurasians are the new group which has been added into the mix, as they apparently contributed DNA to both present-day Europeans and the people that journeyed across the Bering Strait into the Americas over 15,000 years ago.

Prior to this paper, the models we had for European ancestry were two-way mixtures. We show that there are three groups, co-senior author and HMS genetics professor David Reich said in a statement. This also explains the recently discovered genetic connection between Europeans and Native Americans. The same Ancient North Eurasian group contributed to both of them.

According to BBC News online science editor Paul Rincon, Reich and his associates reached their conclusion after analyzing the genomes of seven hunter-gatherers from Scandinavia, one hunter whose remains were discovered in a cave in Luxembourg, and an early farmer from Stuttgart, Germany. They also found that the ancestry of both ancient Near Eastern farmers and their European descendants can be traced further back to a previously unknown lineage called the Basal Eurasians.

Our study does indeed show that European origins were more complex than previously imagined, Iosif Lazaridis, a postdoctoral research fellow at HMS, told Reuters. It seems that Europeans who are often considered one group today actually have a complex history with at least three groups admixing in different proportions in their history.

Nearly all Europeans were found to have ancestry from all three of these ancient groups, Reuters reporter Will Dunham explained. The ancient north Eurasians contributed as much as 20 percent of their genetics, and the researchers said that this group connects all modern Europeans and Native Americans.

The study also revealed that people in northern Europe (particularly the Baltic states) had the highest proportion of western European hunter-gatherer ancestry, with up to half of the DNA of Lithuanians coming from this group, Dunham said. Southern Europeans obtained the bulk of their genetic ancestry from the ancient farmers, with as much as 90 percent of the DNA of Sardinians tracing back to these early European immigrants.

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DNA Of Modern Europeans Can Be Traced Back To Three Ancient Tribes