title: The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran.
abstract: The agricultural transition profoundly changed human societies. We sequenced and analysed the first genome (1.39x) of an early Neolithic woman from Ganj Dareh, in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, a site with early evidence for an economy based on goat herding, ca. 10,000 BP. We show that Western Iran was inhabited by a population genetically most similar to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus, but distinct from the Neolithic Anatolian people who later brought food production into Europe. The inhabitants of Ganj Dareh made little direct genetic contribution to modern European populations, suggesting those of the Central Zagros were somewhat isolated from other populations of the Fertile Crescent. Runs of homozygosity are of a similar length to those from Neolithic farmers, and shorter than those of Caucasus and Western Hunter-Gatherers, suggesting that the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh did not undergo the large population bottleneck suffered by their northern neighbours. While some degree of cultural diffusion between Anatolia, Western Iran and other neighbouring regions is possible, the genetic dissimilarity between early Anatolian farmers and the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh supports a model in which Neolithic societies in these areas were distinct.
authors: Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK.
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Gallego-Llorente
authors: School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Connell
authors: Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK.
authors: E R
authors: ER
authors: Jones
authors: Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.
authors: D C
authors: DC
authors: Merrett
authors: The Genomics Institute, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Jeon
authors: Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK.|Integrative Systems Biology Laboratory, Division of Biological and Environmental Sciences &Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Eriksson
authors: Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK.
authors: V
authors: V
authors: Siska
authors: School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.|Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, Copenhagen 1350, Denmark.
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Gamba
authors: Department of Anthropology, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB R3B 2E9, Canada.
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Meiklejohn
authors: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK.
authors: R
authors: R
authors: Beyer
authors: The Genomics Institute, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Jeon
authors: The Genomics Institute, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.
authors: Y S
authors: YS
authors: Cho
authors: Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute for Biochemistry and Biology, Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknechtstraße 24-25, Potsdam, 14476, Germany.
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Hofreiter
authors: The Genomics Institute, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Bhak
authors: Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK.
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Manica
authors: School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors: R
authors: R
authors: Pinhasi
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D001106:Archaeology; D000072441:DNA, Ancient / Q000032:analysis*; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics; D005060:Europe; D000067565:Farmers; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D015894:Genome, Human; D005843:Geography; D006239:Haplotypes; D063426:Human Migration; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran / Q000208:ethnology; D010641:Phenotype; D010802:Phylogeny; D025341:Principal Component Analysis
chemical_list: D000072441:DNA, Ancient; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial