Ancient population genetics of the 6000–4000 cal BC period of the Carpathian Basin

The present study was part of the interdisciplinary research project entitled “Bevölkerungsgeschichte des Karpatenbeckens in der Jungsteinzeit und ihr Einfluss auf die Besiedlung Mitteleuropas”, funded by the DFG from 2010 to 2014. The focus of this study is the population history of 6th–5th millennia cal BC Neolithic and Copper Age period of the Carpathian Basin, focusing predominantly on the territory of present-day Hungary. Here, the results of a large interdisciplinary project – aimed to perform ancient DNA analyses (uniparentally inherited mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome) on human remains – and the conclusions thereof on population history of the study area are presented.
The comparative population genetic analyses reveal not only a massive migration of the first farming communities (Starčevo-Körös-Criș culture) from the same Anatolian Neolithic populations of related genetic substrate but also the predominant continuity of their maternal lineages over the studied two millennia. The sign of hunter-gatherer resurgence was detectable only up to a small proportion in the second half of the 6th millennium cal BC. The genetic complexity of the populations under study was influenced by smaller scale population genetic events. New paternal lineages, arriving at the beginning of the 5th millennium cal BC to the western Carpathian Basin, lived on, along with the maternal lineages, into the mid-5th millennium cal BC. This characterised a Late Neolithic population, which became genetically stronger linked to the eastern part of the region than the populations of the preceding centuries.
The study is completed by a review of the the latest results gained by genome-wide analyses of ancient populations. These essentially support the assumptions made by mitochondrial DNA analyses but also refine some of our previous conclusions.