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. 2019 May 20;29(10):1701-1711.e16.
doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.04.026. Epub 2019 May 9.

The Arrival of Siberian Ancestry Connecting the Eastern Baltic to Uralic Speakers further East

Lehti Saag  1 , Margot Laneman  2 , Liivi Varul  3 , Martin Malve  2 , Heiki Valk  2 , Maria A Razzak  4 , Ivan G Shirobokov  5 , Valeri I Khartanovich  5 , Elena R Mikhaylova  6 , Alena Kushniarevich  7 , Christiana Lyn Scheib  7 , Anu Solnik  7 , Tuuli Reisberg  7 , Jüri Parik  8 , Lauri Saag  7 , Ene Metspalu  7 , Siiri Rootsi  7 , Francesco Montinaro  7 , Maido Remm  9 , Reedik Mägi  10 , Eugenia D'Atanasio  11 , Enrico Ryunosuke Crema  12 , David Díez-Del-Molino  13 , Mark G Thomas  14 , Aivar Kriiska  2 , Toomas Kivisild  15 , Richard Villems  8 , Valter Lang  2 , Mait Metspalu  7 , Kristiina Tambets  16
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The Arrival of Siberian Ancestry Connecting the Eastern Baltic to Uralic Speakers further East

Lehti Saag et al. Curr Biol. .

Abstract

In this study, we compare the genetic ancestry of individuals from two as yet genetically unstudied cultural traditions in Estonia in the context of available modern and ancient datasets: 15 from the Late Bronze Age stone-cist graves (1200-400 BC) (EstBA) and 6 from the Pre-Roman Iron Age tarand cemeteries (800/500 BC-50 AD) (EstIA). We also included 5 Pre-Roman to Roman Iron Age Ingrian (500 BC-450 AD) (IngIA) and 7 Middle Age Estonian (1200-1600 AD) (EstMA) individuals to build a dataset for studying the demographic history of the northern parts of the Eastern Baltic from the earliest layer of Mesolithic to modern times. Our findings are consistent with EstBA receiving gene flow from regions with strong Western hunter-gatherer (WHG) affinities and EstIA from populations related to modern Siberians. The latter inference is in accordance with Y chromosome (chrY) distributions in present day populations of the Eastern Baltic, as well as patterns of autosomal variation in the majority of the westernmost Uralic speakers [1-5]. This ancestry reached the coasts of the Baltic Sea no later than the mid-first millennium BC; i.e., in the same time window as the diversification of west Uralic (Finnic) languages [6]. Furthermore, phenotypic traits often associated with modern Northern Europeans, like light eyes, hair, and skin, as well as lactose tolerance, can be traced back to the Bronze Age in the Eastern Baltic. VIDEO ABSTRACT.

Keywords: Bronze Age; Eastern Baltic; Estonia; Iron Age; Middle Ages; ancient DNA; kinship; phenotype; population genetics; shotgun sequencing.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Geographical locations, ADMIXTURE and principal component analyses’ results.
EF – early farmers; HG – hunter-gatherers; LNBA – Late Neolithic/Bronze Age; IMA – Iron/Middle Ages; LN – Late Neolithic; BA – Bronze Age; IA – Iron Age; MA – Middle Ages. A. Map of the geographical locations of the individuals of this study. B. ADMIXTURE analysis results for a selection of ancient population averages at K9 with ancient individuals projected onto the modern genetic structure. The X axis shows the proportions of the ancestral components. C. Principal component analysis results of modern West Eurasians with ancient individuals projected onto the first two components (PC1 and PC2). See also Figure S1, Table S3.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Outgroup f3 statistics' results.
Estonian Corded Ware culture (Estonia CWC; blue axis) and Estonian Bronze Age (Est BA; red axis) plotted against each other. A. Outgroup f3 statistics' values of form f3(Yorubas; Estonia CWC/Est BA, ancient). EF – early farmers; NCA – Neolithic/Copper Age; EMBA – Early/Middle Bronze Age; MLBA – Middle/Late Bronze Age; IMA – Iron/Middle Ages; HG – hunter-gatherers; LNBA – Late Neolithic/Bronze Age; LN – Late Neolithic; BA – Bronze Age; IA – Iron Age; MA – Middle Ages. B. Outgroup f3 statistics' values of form f3(Yorubas; Estonia CWC/Est BA, modern). See also Figure S2, Table S3, Data S1.
Figure 3
Figure 3. ChromoPainter/NNLS and qpAdm results.
EstBA – Estonian Bronze Age; EstIA – Estonian Iron Age; IngIA – Ingrian Iron Age; EstMA – Estonian Middle Ages; WHG – Western hunter-gatherers; Central MN – Central European Middle Neolithic. A. ChromoPainter/NNLS unlinked mode summarised results. B. qpAdm results. See also Table S3, Data S1.
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