Variable kinship patterns in Neolithic Anatolia revealed by ancient genomes
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The social organization of the first fully sedentary societies that emerged during the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia remains enigmatic,1 mainly because material culture studies provide limited insight into this issue. However, because Neolithic Anatolian communities often buried their dead beneath domestic buildings,2 household composition and social structure can be studied through these human remains. Here, we describe genetic relatedness among co-burials associated with domestic buildings in Neolithic Anatolia using 59 ancient genomes, including 22 new genomes from Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük. We infer pedigree relationships by simultaneously analyzing multiple types of information, including autosomal and X chromosome kinship coefficients, maternal markers, and radiocarbon dating. In two early Neolithic villages dating to the 9th and 8th millennia BCE, Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu, we discover that siblings and parent-offspring pairings were frequent within domestic structures, which provides the first direct indication of close genetic relationships among co-burials. In contrast, in the 7th millennium BCE sites of Çatalhöyük and Barcın, where we study subadults interred within and around houses, we find close genetic relatives to be rare. Hence, genetic relatedness may not have played a major role in the choice of burial location at these latter two sites, at least for subadults. This supports the hypothesis that in Çatalhöyük,3–5 and possibly in some other Neolithic communities, domestic structures may have served as burial location for social units incorporating biologically unrelated individuals. Our results underscore the diversity of kin structures in Neolithic communities during this important phase of sociocultural development.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Current Biology |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| Pages (from-to) | 2455-2468 |
| ISSN | 0960-9822 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 7 Jun 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
We thank all colleagues at the METU CompEvo and Hacettepe Human_G groups, and Özlen Konu for helpful discussion, the Konya Museum and the Ministry of Culture of Turkey for permissions, and three anonymous reviewers for suggestions. Funding: The work was supported by ERC (Consolidator Grant no. 772390 to M.S.), EMBO (Short-Term Fellowship grant no. STF 7909 to R.Y.), TÜBITAK of Turkey (grant no. 117Z229 to M.S.), AHRC/NSF ( AH/M008908/1 to A.B. and I.H.), NCN of Poland (grants no. 2012/06/M/HS3/00286 to A.M., 2017/24/T/HS3/00511 , and 2014/15/N/HS3/01272 to M.Ch.), National Science Foundation of the USA (Senior Biological Anthropology, NSF BCS-1827338 to M.P.), the French State via the ‘Investments for the Future’ framework program, Initiative d’Excellence de l’Université de Bordeaux ( IdEx ) (Award No. ANR-10-IDEX-03-02 to C.J.K).
Funding Information:
We thank all colleagues at the METU CompEvo and Hacettepe Human_G groups, and ?zlen Konu for helpful discussion, the Konya Museum and the Ministry of Culture of Turkey for permissions, and three anonymous reviewers for suggestions. Funding: The work was supported by ERC (Consolidator Grant no. 772390 to M.S.), EMBO (Short-Term Fellowship grant no. STF 7909 to R.Y.), T?BITAK of Turkey (grant no. 117Z229 to M.S.), AHRC/NSF (AH/M008908/1 to A.B. and I.H.), NCN of Poland (grants no. 2012/06/M/HS3/00286 to A.M. 2017/24/T/HS3/00511, and 2014/15/N/HS3/01272 to M.Ch.), National Science Foundation of the USA (Senior Biological Anthropology, NSF BCS-1827338 to M.P.), the French State via the ?Investments for the Future? framework program, Initiative d'Excellence de l'Universit? de Bordeaux (IdEx) (Award No. ANR-10-IDEX-03-02 to C.J.K). (a) R.Y. I.M. M.Ch. ?.T. ?.A. M.P. E.S?. F.G. R.?. D.B. Y.S.E. G.D. M.?. S.D.H. C.J.K. A.G?. F.?. and M.S. conceived and designed the study and experiments, with contributions by J.S. A.Ma. C.S.L. and I.H.; (b) ?.D.E. N.K. A.Ma. C.S.L. I.H. Y.S.E. G.D. M.?. S.D.H. and C.J.K. provided the osteoarchaeological material; (c) M.Ch. ?.D.E. M.M. E.M.J.Sc. Y.S.E. S.D.H. and C.J.K. prepared the osteoarchaeological material; (d) C.M. A.B. C.K. H.C.G. D.A. ?.A. M.P. F.G. R.?. D.B. Y.S.E. G.D. M.?. S.D.H. and C.J.K. compiled and analyzed archaeological data, with contributions by M.deK. G.M. A.F. J.P. and N.K.; (e) R.Y. A.D. M.Ch. D.Ka. and N.D.D. performed molecular biology laboratory experiments, with contributions and support from V.K.L. M.K. and S.Y. supervised by A.G. F.?. and M.S.; (f) R.Y. I.M. K.B.V. D.Ko. E.F. S.S.?. G.M.K. A.D. A.S. and M.S. analyzed genetic data and performed simulations, with contributions and support from M.Ch. N.D.D. M.?e. E.Y. A.R.Mu. E.K. A.Gh. T.G. and M.J. supervised by N.E.A. E.S?. A.G. F.?. and M.S.; (g) ?.A. M.P. E.S?. F.G. R.?. D.B. Y.S.E. G.D. M.?. S.D.H. C.J.K. A.G?. F.?. and M.S. supervised the study, with contributions by C.C.B. A.J. and A.Ma.; (h) R.Y. I.M. M.M. ?.A. M.P. E.S?. F.G. R.?. D.B. Y.S.E. G.D. M.?. S.D.H. C.J.K. A.G?. F.?. and M.S. wrote the manuscript with contributions from all authors. The authors declare no competing interests. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. The author list of this paper includes contributors from the location where the research was conducted who participated in the data collection, design, analysis, and/or interpretation of the work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors
- Anatolia, household composition, identity by descent, intramural burial, kinship, Neolithic transition, paleogenomics, relatedness
Research areas
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