Abstract
Present-day people from England and Wales have more ancestry derived from early European farmers (EEF) than did people of the Early Bronze Age 1. To understand this, here we generated genome-wide data from 793 individuals, increasing data from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age in Britain by 12-fold, and western and central Europe by 3.5-fold. Between 1000 and 875 bc, EEF ancestry increased in southern Britain (England and Wales) but not northern Britain (Scotland) due to incorporation of migrants who arrived at this time and over previous centuries, and who were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France. These migrants contributed about half the ancestry of people of England and Wales from the Iron Age, thereby creating a plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain. These patterns are part of a broader trend of EEF ancestry becoming more similar across central and western Europe in the Middle to the Late Bronze Age, coincident with archaeological evidence of intensified cultural exchange 2–6. There was comparatively less gene flow from continental Europe during the Iron Age, and the independent genetic trajectory in Britain is also reflected in the rise of the allele conferring lactase persistence to approximately 50% by this time compared to approximately 7% in central Europe where it rose rapidly in frequency only a millennium later. This suggests that dairy products were used in qualitatively different ways in Britain and in central Europe over this period.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 588-594 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Nature |
| Volume | 601 |
| Issue number | 7894 |
| Early online date | 22 Dec 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 27 Jan 2022 |
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Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age. / Patterson, Nick; Isakov, Michael; Booth, Thomas et al.
In: Nature, Vol. 601, No. 7894, 27.01.2022, p. 588-594.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age
AU - Patterson, Nick
AU - Isakov, Michael
AU - Booth, Thomas
AU - Büster, Lindsey
AU - Fischer, Claire Elise
AU - Olalde, Iñigo
AU - Ringbauer, Harald
AU - Akbari, Ali
AU - Cheronet, Olivia
AU - Bleasdale, Madeleine
AU - Adamski, Nicole
AU - Altena, Eveline
AU - Bernardos, Rebecca
AU - Brace, Selina
AU - Broomandkhoshbacht, Nasreen
AU - Callan, Kimberly
AU - Candilio, Francesca
AU - Culleton, Brendan
AU - Curtis, Elizabeth
AU - Demetz, Lea
AU - Carlson, Kellie Sara Duffett
AU - Edwards, Ceiridwen J.
AU - Fernandes, Daniel M.
AU - Foody, M. George B.
AU - Freilich, Suzanne
AU - Goodchild, Helen
AU - Kearns, Aisling
AU - Lawson, Ann Marie
AU - Lazaridis, Iosif
AU - Mah, Matthew
AU - Mallick, Swapan
AU - Mandl, Kirsten
AU - Micco, Adam
AU - Michel, Megan
AU - Morante, Guillermo Bravo
AU - Oppenheimer, Jonas
AU - Özdoğan, Kadir Toykan
AU - Qiu, Lijun
AU - Schattke, Constanze
AU - Stewardson, Kristin
AU - Workman, J. Noah
AU - Zalzala, Fatma
AU - Zhang, Zhao
AU - Agustí, Bibiana
AU - Allen, Tim
AU - Almássy, Katalin
AU - Amkreutz, Luc
AU - Ash, Abigail
AU - Baillif-Ducros, Christèle
AU - Barclay, Alistair
AU - Bartosiewicz, László
AU - Baxter, Katherine
AU - Bernert, Zsolt
AU - Blažek, Jan
AU - Bodružić, Mario
AU - Boissinot, Philippe
AU - Bonsall, Clive
AU - Bradley, Pippa
AU - Brittain, Marcus
AU - Brookes, Alison
AU - Brown, Fraser
AU - Brown, Lisa
AU - Brunning, Richard
AU - Budd, Chelsea
AU - Burmaz, Josip
AU - Canet, Sylvain
AU - Carnicero-Cáceres, Silvia
AU - Čaušević-Bully, Morana
AU - Chamberlain, Andrew
AU - Chauvin, Sébastien
AU - Clough, Sharon
AU - Čondić, Natalija
AU - Coppa, Alfredo
AU - Craig, Oliver
AU - Črešnar, Matija
AU - Cummings, Vicki
AU - Czifra, Szabolcs
AU - Danielisová, Alžběta
AU - Daniels, Robin
AU - Davies, Alex
AU - de Jersey, Philip
AU - Deacon, Jody
AU - Deminger, Csilla
AU - Ditchfield, Peter W.
AU - Dizdar, Marko
AU - Dobeš, Miroslav
AU - Dobisíková, Miluše
AU - Domboróczki, László
AU - Drinkall, Gail
AU - Đukić, Ana
AU - Ernée, Michal
AU - Evans, Christopher
AU - Evans, Jane
AU - Fernández-Götz, Manuel
AU - Filipović, Slavica
AU - Fitzpatrick, Andrew
AU - Fokkens, Harry
AU - Fowler, Chris
AU - Fox, Allison
AU - Gallina, Zsolt
AU - Gamble, Michelle
AU - González Morales, Manuel R.
AU - González-Rabanal, Borja
AU - Green, Adrian
AU - Gyenesei, Katalin
AU - Habermehl, Diederick
AU - Hajdu, Tamás
AU - Hamilton, Derek
AU - Harris, James
AU - Hayden, Chris
AU - Hendriks, Joep
AU - Hernu, Bénédicte
AU - Hey, Gill
AU - Horňák, Milan
AU - Ilon, Gábor
AU - Istvánovits, Eszter
AU - Jones, Andy M.
AU - Kavur, Martina Blečić
AU - Kazek, Kevin
AU - Kenyon, Robert A.
AU - Khreisheh, Amal
AU - Kiss, Viktória
AU - Kleijne, Jos
AU - Knight, Mark
AU - Kootker, Lisette M.
AU - Kovács, Péter F.
AU - Kozubová, Anita
AU - Kulcsár, Gabriella
AU - Kulcsár, Valéria
AU - Le Pennec, Christophe
AU - Legge, Michael
AU - Leivers, Matt
AU - Loe, Louise
AU - López-Costas, Olalla
AU - Lord, Tom
AU - Los, Dženi
AU - Lyall, James
AU - Marín-Arroyo, Ana B.
AU - Mason, Philip
AU - Matošević, Damir
AU - Maxted, Andy
AU - McIntyre, Lauren
AU - McKinley, Jacqueline
AU - McSweeney, Kathleen
AU - Meijlink, Bernard
AU - Mende, Balázs G.
AU - Menđušić, Marko
AU - Metlička, Milan
AU - Meyer, Sophie
AU - Mihovilić, Kristina
AU - Milasinovic, Lidija
AU - Minnitt, Steve
AU - Moore, Joanna
AU - Morley, Geoff
AU - Mullan, Graham
AU - Musilová, Margaréta
AU - Neil, Benjamin
AU - Nicholls, Rebecca
AU - Novak, Mario
AU - Pala, Maria
AU - Papworth, Martin
AU - Paresys, Cécile
AU - Patten, Ricky
AU - Perkić, Domagoj
AU - Pesti, Krisztina
AU - Petit, Alba
AU - Petriščáková, Katarína
AU - Pichon, Coline
AU - Pickard, Catriona
AU - Pilling, Zoltán
AU - Price, T. Douglas
AU - Radović, Siniša
AU - Redfern, Rebecca
AU - Resutík, Branislav
AU - Rhodes, Daniel T.
AU - Richards, Martin B.
AU - Roberts, Amy
AU - Roefstra, Jean
AU - Sankot, Pavel
AU - Šefčáková, Alena
AU - Sheridan, Alison
AU - Skae, Sabine
AU - Šmolíková, Miroslava
AU - Somogyi, Krisztina
AU - Somogyvári, Ágnes
AU - Stephens, Mark
AU - Szabó, Géza
AU - Szécsényi-Nagy, Anna
AU - Szeniczey, Tamás
AU - Tabor, Jonathan
AU - Tankó, Károly
AU - Maria, Clenis Tavarez
AU - Terry, Rachel
AU - Teržan, Biba
AU - Teschler-Nicola, Maria
AU - Torres-Martínez, Jesús F.
AU - Trapp, Julien
AU - Turle, Ross
AU - Ujvári, Ferenc
AU - van der Heiden, Menno
AU - Veleminsky, Petr
AU - Veselka, Barbara
AU - Vytlačil, Zdeněk
AU - Waddington, Clive
AU - Ware, Paula
AU - Wilkinson, Paul
AU - Wilson, Linda
AU - Wiseman, Rob
AU - Young, Eilidh
AU - Zaninović, Joško
AU - Žitňan, Andrej
AU - Lalueza-Fox, Carles
AU - de Knijff, Peter
AU - Barnes, Ian
AU - Halkon, Peter
AU - Thomas, Mark G.
AU - Kennett, Douglas J.
AU - Cunliffe, Barry
AU - Lillie, Malcolm
AU - Rohland, Nadin
AU - Pinhasi, Ron
AU - Armit, Ian
AU - Reich, David
N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgements We thank P. Csengeri, T. de Rider, M. Giesen, E. Melis, A. Parkin and A. Schmitt for their contribution to sample selection and collection of archaeological data; R. Crellin, J. Koch, K. Kristiansen and G. Kroonen for comments on the manuscript; A. Williamson for manually revising Y chromosome haplogroup determinations and making corrections to nine; and M. Lee for assistance with data entry. This work was funded in part by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 834087; the COMMIOS Project to I.A.). M.N. was supported by the Croatian Science Fund grant (HRZZ IP-2016-06-1450). P.V., M.Dobeš and Z.V. were supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (DKRVO 2019-2023/7.I.c, 00023272). M.E. was supported by Czech Academy of Sciences award Praemium Academiae. M.Dobisíková and A.Danielisová were supported by the grant RVO 67985912 of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. M.G.B.F. was funded by The Leverhulme Trust via a Doctoral Scholarship scheme awarded to M.Pala and M.B.R. Support to M.Legge came from the South, West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership. M.G.’s osteological analyses were funded by Culture Vannin. A.S.-N. was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. T.H., T.S. and K.K.’s work was supported by a grant from the Hungarian Research, Development and Innovation Office (project number: FK128013). We acknowledge support for radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analyses as well as access to skeletal material from Manx National Heritage and A. Fox. Dating analysis was funded by Leverhulme Trust grant RPG-388. M.G.T. and I.B. were supported by a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award (project 100713/Z/12/Z). I.O. was supported by a Ramón y Cajal grant from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spanish Government (RYC2019-027909-I). The research directed at Harvard was funded by NIH grants GM100233 and HG012287, by John Templeton Foundation grant 61220, by a gift from Jean-François Clin, and by the Allen Discovery Center program, a Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group advised program of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. D.R. is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2022/1/27
Y1 - 2022/1/27
N2 - Present-day people from England and Wales have more ancestry derived from early European farmers (EEF) than did people of the Early Bronze Age 1. To understand this, here we generated genome-wide data from 793 individuals, increasing data from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age in Britain by 12-fold, and western and central Europe by 3.5-fold. Between 1000 and 875 bc, EEF ancestry increased in southern Britain (England and Wales) but not northern Britain (Scotland) due to incorporation of migrants who arrived at this time and over previous centuries, and who were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France. These migrants contributed about half the ancestry of people of England and Wales from the Iron Age, thereby creating a plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain. These patterns are part of a broader trend of EEF ancestry becoming more similar across central and western Europe in the Middle to the Late Bronze Age, coincident with archaeological evidence of intensified cultural exchange 2–6. There was comparatively less gene flow from continental Europe during the Iron Age, and the independent genetic trajectory in Britain is also reflected in the rise of the allele conferring lactase persistence to approximately 50% by this time compared to approximately 7% in central Europe where it rose rapidly in frequency only a millennium later. This suggests that dairy products were used in qualitatively different ways in Britain and in central Europe over this period.
AB - Present-day people from England and Wales have more ancestry derived from early European farmers (EEF) than did people of the Early Bronze Age 1. To understand this, here we generated genome-wide data from 793 individuals, increasing data from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age in Britain by 12-fold, and western and central Europe by 3.5-fold. Between 1000 and 875 bc, EEF ancestry increased in southern Britain (England and Wales) but not northern Britain (Scotland) due to incorporation of migrants who arrived at this time and over previous centuries, and who were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France. These migrants contributed about half the ancestry of people of England and Wales from the Iron Age, thereby creating a plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain. These patterns are part of a broader trend of EEF ancestry becoming more similar across central and western Europe in the Middle to the Late Bronze Age, coincident with archaeological evidence of intensified cultural exchange 2–6. There was comparatively less gene flow from continental Europe during the Iron Age, and the independent genetic trajectory in Britain is also reflected in the rise of the allele conferring lactase persistence to approximately 50% by this time compared to approximately 7% in central Europe where it rose rapidly in frequency only a millennium later. This suggests that dairy products were used in qualitatively different ways in Britain and in central Europe over this period.
KW - Archaeology
KW - Genetic variation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85121633354&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41586-021-04287-4
DO - 10.1038/s41586-021-04287-4
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85121633354
VL - 601
SP - 588
EP - 594
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
SN - 0028-0836
IS - 7894
ER -