The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia

• DOI: 10.1126/science.aar7711
• Publication Date: 2018-05-09T17:05:30Z
• Authors: Peter de Barros D...; Rui Martiniano; Jack Kamm; J. Víctor Moreno-...; Guus Kroonen; Michaël Peyrot; Gojko Barjamovic; Simon Rasmussen; Claus Zacho; Nurbol Baimukhanov; Victor Zaibert; Victor Merz; Arjun Biddanda; Ilja Merz; Valeriy Loman; Valeriy Evdokimov; Emma Usmanova; Brian Hemphill; Andaine Seguin-Or...; Fulya Eylem Yediay; Inam Ullah; Karl-Göran Sjögren; Katrine Højholt I...; Jeremy Choin; Constanza de la F...; Melissa Ilardo; Hannes Schroeder; Vyacheslav Moiseyev; Andrey Gromov; Andrei Polyakov; Sachihiro Omura; Süleyman Yücel Se...; Habib Ahmad; Catriona McKenzie; Ashot Margaryan; Abdul Hameed; Abdul Samad; Nazish Gul; Muhammad Hassan K...; O. I. Goriunova; Vladimir I. Bazal...; John Novembre; Andrzej W. Weber; Ludovic Orlando; Morten E. Allentoft; Rasmus Nielsen; Kristian Kristiansen; Martin Sikora; Alan K. Outram; Richard Durbin; Eske Willerslev
• Keywords: Steppe; Animal Husbandry; Bronze; Central Asia

The Yamnaya expansions from the western steppe into Europe and Asia during Early Bronze Age (~3000 BCE) are believed to have brought with them Indo-European languages possibly horse husbandry. We analyzed 74 ancient whole-genome sequences across Inner Anatolia show that Botai people associated earliest husbandry derived a hunter-gatherer population deeply diverged Yamnaya. Our results also suggest distinct migrations bringing West Eurasian ancestry South before after, but not at time of, culture. find no evidence of in when attested there. Thus, contrast Europe, Yamnaya-related had limited direct genetic impact Asia.