Pleistocene Mitochondrial Genomes Suggest a Single Major Dispersal of Non-Africans and a Late Glacial Population Turnover in Europe

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.02.022
• Publication Date: 2016-02-22T13:21:32Z
• Authors: Cosimo Posth; Gabriel Renaud; Alissa Mittnik; Dorothée G. Drucker; Hélène Rougier; Christophe Cupillard; Frédérique Valentin; Corinne Thevenet; Anja Furtwängler; Christoph Wißing; Michael Francken; Maria Malina; Michael Bolus; Martina Lari; Elena Gigli; Giulia Capecchi; Isabelle Crevecoeur; Cédric Beauval; Damien Flas; Mietje Germonpré; Johannes van der ...; Richard Cottiaux; Bernard Gély; Annamaria Ronchit...; Kurt Wehrberger; Dan Grigorescu; Jiří Svoboda; Patrick Semal; David Caramelli; Hervé Bocherens; Katerina Harvati; Nicholas J. Conard; Wolfgang Haak; Adam Powell; Johannes Krause
• Keywords: Genetics and Molecular Biology (all); 0301 basic medicine; 570; [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; [SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]; European Continental Ancestry Group; [SDV.BBM]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biochemistry; 590; Black People; [SDV.BBM.GTP]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biochemistry; Medicine (all); Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (all); Agricultural and Biological Sciences (all); Biochemistry; DNA, Mitochondrial; White People; Ancient; [SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; [SDV.BBM.GTP]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biochemistry, Molecular Biology/Genomics [q-bio.GN]; [SDV.BBM] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biochemistry, Molecular Biology; Humans; [SDV.BBM]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biochemistry, Molecular Biology; DNA, Ancient; Molecular Biology; African Continental Ancestry Group; Molecular Biology/Genomics [q-bio.GN]; Genome; [SHS.ARCHEO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; Agricultural and Biological Sciences(all); Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all); Genome, Human; Medicine (all); Genetic Variation; DNA; Emigration and Immigration; Mitochondrial; [SDV] Life Sciences [q-bio]; Europe; Agricultural and Biological Sciences (all); Haplotypes; Africa; Genome, Mitochondrial; Agricultural and Biological Sciences (all); Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (all); [SDV.BBM.GTP] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biochemistry, Molecular Biology/Genomics [q-bio.GN]; [SHS] Humanities and Social Sciences; Human

How modern humans dispersed into Eurasia and Australasia, including the number of separate expansions and their timings, is highly debated [1, 2]. Two categories of models are proposed for the dispersal of non-Africans: (1) single dispersal, i.e., a single major diffusion of modern humans across Eurasia and Australasia [3-5]; and (2) multiple dispersal, i.e., additional earlier population expansions that may have contributed to the genetic diversity of some present-day humans outside of Africa [6-9]. Many variants of these models focus largely on Asia and Australasia, neglecting human dispersal into Europe, thus explaining only a subset of the entire colonization process outside of Africa [3-5, 8, 9]. The genetic diversity of the first modern humans who spread into Europe during the Late Pleistocene and the impact of subsequent climatic events on their demography are largely unknown. Here we analyze 55 complete human mitochondrial genomes (mtDNAs) of hunter-gatherers spanning ∼35,000 years of European prehistory. We unexpectedly find mtDNA lineage M in individuals prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This lineage is absent in contemporary Europeans, although it is found at high frequency in modern Asians, Australasians, and Native Americans. Dating the most recent common ancestor of each of the modern non-African mtDNA clades reveals their single, late, and rapid dispersal less than 55,000 years ago. Demographic modeling not only indicates an LGM genetic bottleneck, but also provides surprising evidence of a major population turnover in Europe around 14,500 years ago during the Late Glacial, a period of climatic instability at the end of the Pleistocene.