title: Comparing maternal genetic variation across two millennia reveals the demographic history of an ancient human population in southwest Turkey.
abstract: More than two decades of archaeological research at the site of Sagalassos, in southwest Turkey, resulted in the study of the former urban settlement in all its features. Originally settled in late Classical/early Hellenistic times, possibly from the later fifth century BCE onwards, the city of Sagalassos and its surrounding territory saw empires come and go. The Plague of Justinian in the sixth century CE, which is considered to have caused the death of up to a third of the population in Anatolia, and an earthquake in the seventh century CE, which is attested to have devastated many monuments in the city, may have severely affected the contemporary Sagalassos community. Human occupation continued, however, and Byzantine Sagalassos was eventually abandoned around 1200 CE. In order to investigate whether these historical events resulted in demographic changes across time, we compared the mitochondrial DNA variation of two population samples from Sagalassos (Roman and Middle Byzantine) and a modern sample from the nearby town of Ağlasun. Our analyses revealed no genetic discontinuity across two millennia in the region and Bayesian coalescence-based simulations indicated that a major population decline in the area coincided with the final abandonment of Sagalassos, rather than with the Plague of Justinian or the mentioned earthquake.
authors.affiliation: Center for Archaeological Sciences, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Department of Imaging & Pathology, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Laboratory of Forensic Genetics and Molecular Archaeology, UZ Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ottoni
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics , School of History, University of Leicester , Leicester, UK.
authors.forename: Rita
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-4217-3060
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rasteiro
authors.affiliation: Depatment of Humanities , Institute of History, Leiden University , Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rinse
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Willet
authors.affiliation: Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project , University of Leuven , Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Claeys
authors.affiliation: Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project , University of Leuven , Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Talloen
authors.affiliation: Center for Archaeological Sciences , University of Leuven , Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Katrien
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Van de Vijver
authors.affiliation: CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, ENFA; UMR5174 EDB (Laboratoire Évolution & Diversité Biologique), Toulouse, France; Université Toulouse 3 Paul Sabatier, CNRS; UMR5174 EDB, Toulouse, France; Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Oeiras, Portugal.
authors.forename: Lounès
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chikhi
authors.affiliation: Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project , University of Leuven , Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Jeroen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Poblome
authors.affiliation: Department of Imaging & Pathology, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Laboratory of Forensic Genetics and Molecular Archaeology, UZ Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Ronny
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Decorte
keywords: Byzantine; Roman; Turkey; ancient DNA; approximate Bayesian computation