RESUMO
The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000-1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. We show that the Bronze Age was a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacements, responsible for shaping major parts of present-day demographic structure in both Europe and Asia. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesized spread of Indo-European languages during the Early Bronze Age. We also demonstrate that light skin pigmentation in Europeans was already present at high frequency in the Bronze Age, but not lactose tolerance, indicating a more recent onset of positive selection on lactose tolerance than previously thought.
Assuntos
Povo Asiático/genética , Evolução Cultural/história , Fósseis , Genoma Humano/genética , Genômica , Idioma/história , População Branca/genética , Arqueologia/métodos , Ásia/etnologia , DNA/genética , DNA/isolamento & purificação , Europa (Continente)/etnologia , Frequência do Gene/genética , Genética Populacional , História Antiga , Migração Humana/história , Humanos , Intolerância à Lactose/genética , Polimorfismo de Nucleotídeo Único/genética , Pigmentação da Pele/genéticaRESUMO
Archaeologists use differences in metals from burial contexts to identify variation in social inequalities during the European Bronze Age. Many have argued that these social inequalities depended on access to, and control of, trade routes. In this paper, I model critical gateways in the Tisza river-a river system in the Carpathian Basin that might have enabled privileged access to metal in some areas but not others. I then evaluate the concentration of metal on different topological nodes of the river network in an attempt to understand what best explains the distribution of metals across this landscape. I do this by describing Bronze Age metal consumption and display in cemeteries from four micro-regions of the Tisza, and compare them with network 'betweenness centrality' values for locations along the river. I find support for the argument that favourably located river nodes had better access to metal in the earlier part of the Bronze Age.