Early Upper Paleolithic genomes of Crimea show migration and admixture dynamics of the first modern European ancestries in relation to climatic crisis
We describe the genomes of two c. 36,000 and 37,000-year-old individuals from the site of Buran-Kaya III in Crimea as belonging to the earliest migration wave of humans carrying ancestry found in present-day Europeans. The occupants of Buran-Kaya III shared the highest genomic similarities with the members of the more recent Mid Upper Paleolithic (MUP) Gravettian-associated Fournol cluster found in southwestern Europe. These genomes revealed that the population turnover in Europe surrounding the Campanian Ignimbrite super-eruption (CI) and the severe Heinrich Stadial 4 climatic cooling was accompanied by admixture events with populations that arrived in Europe thousands of years earlier. We also characterize a shared ancestry component related to pre-CI Zlatý Kun found in Buran Kaya III, later Gravettian-associated populations of western Europe, and Mesolithic Caucasus populations. These findings show genetic connections between pre-CI central Europe, Early UP Caucasus, and MUP western and southwestern Europe.