Genetic stratigraphy of key demographic events in Arabia.
At the crossroads between Africa and Eurasia, Arabia is necessarily a melting pot, its peoples enriched by successive gene flow over the generations. Estimating the timing and impact of these multiple migrations are important steps in reconstructing the key demographic events in the human history. However, current methods based on genome-wide information identify admixture events inefficiently, tending to estimate only the more recent ages, as here in the case of admixture events across the Red Sea (~8-37 generations for African input into Arabia, and 30-90 generations for "back-to-Africa" migrations). An mtDNA-based founder analysis, corroborated by detailed analysis of the whole-mtDNA genome, affords an alternative means by which to identify, date and quantify multiple migration events at greater time depths, across the full range of modern human history, albeit for the maternal line of descent only. In Arabia, this approach enables us to infer several major pulses of dispersal between the Near East and Arabia, most likely via the Gulf corridor. Although some relict lineages survive in Arabia from the time of the out-of-Africa dispersal, 60 ka, the major episodes in the peopling of the Peninsula took place from north to south in the Late Glacial and, to a lesser extent, the immediate post-glacial/Neolithic. Exchanges across the Red Sea were mainly due to the Arab slave trade and maritime dominance (from ~2.5 ka to very recent times), but had already begun by the early Holocene, fuelled by the establishment of maritime networks since ~8 ka. The main "back-to-Africa" migrations, again undetected by genome-wide dating analyses, occurred in the Late Glacial period for introductions into eastern Africa, whilst the Neolithic was more significant for migrations towards North Africa.
Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal; Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal; School of Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
Verónica
V
Fernandes
Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal; Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal; Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas da Universidade do Porto (ICBAS), Porto, Portugal.
Petr
P
Triska
Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal; Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal; School of Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
Joana B
JB
Pereira
General Department of Forensic Sciences and Criminology, Dubai Police General Headquarters, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Farida
F
Alshamali
Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal.
Teresa
T
Rito
Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal.
Alison
A
Machado
Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal; Archaeogenetics Laboratory, Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic.
Zuzana
Z
Fajkošová
Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal; Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal.
Bruno
B
Cavadas
Archaeogenetics Laboratory, Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic.
Viktor
V
Černý
Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal.
Pedro
P
Soares
School of Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom; Department of Biological Sciences, School of Applied Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom.
Martin B
MB
Richards
Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal; Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal; Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal.
Luísa
L
Pereira
D000349:Africa; D001083:Arabia; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D003710:Demography / Q000266:history*; D018703:Founder Effect; D051456:Gene Flow; D023281:Genomics; D006239:Haplotypes; D049690:History, Ancient; D063426:Human Migration / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D025341:Principal Component Analysis
D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial