Archaeogenomics of humans from the layer of the Upper Volga Culture revealed their greatest genetic similarity with Eastern European hunter-gatherers and ancient representatives of Mesolithic/Neolithic Europe

Abstract

The genetic structure of the population of Northern Europe of the Mesolithic-Neolithic period currently remains poorly investigated due to the small number of materials available for research. For the first time, the complete genome of an individual from the multilayer Meso-Neolithic site Ivanovskoe VII, located in the Upper Volga region in Yaroslavl Oblast, was studied. According to stratigraphic data, an isolated skull of an adult male without a lower jaw was found in layer II containing ceramics of the Upper Volga Early Neolithic Culture. AMS date obtained from the scull bone. The calibrated age of the collagen sample was determined with a probability of 1σ (68 %) in the interval 6588–6498 cal.y.b. (UGAMS-67431 OxCal v4.4), wich corresponds to the Late Mesolithic. The dates of the peat containing layer II of the culture lie between 6000 and 7000 radiocarbon years ago. The main aim of the study is to elucidate the position of this individual in the context of the genomic landscape of Mesolithic and Neolithic Europe. It is shown that the genetic profile of the studied individual (DM5) fully coincides with the genetic diversity profile of the Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHG). Haplogroups of mitochondrial DNA (U5a2+16294) and Y-chromosome (R1b1a1) testify to its genetic connection with ancient Mesolithic populations of Europe. The DM5 sample has an additional substitution at position 54 of mtDNA in common with the most ancient samples of this mitochondrial haplogroup from the territory of Western Europe (England and France), which suggests the existence of a probable ancestor belonging to an even earlier period (Late Paleolithic), possibly on the territory of Western Europe. Specimen DM5 is clustered together with several ancient territorially and chronologically separated groups. First, with representatives of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of northern Eastern Europe (South Oleniy Island, Karelia; Minino I and II, Vologda region; Peschanitsa, and Popovo, Arkhangelsk region). Second, DM5 is similar to Early Mesolithic materials from the Middle Volga region — the oldest representative of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Sidelkino and an Eneolithic specimen from Lebyazhinka, Samara region. Third, in the cluster of individuals close to DM5 there are representatives of later groups — from the Early Neolithic Yazykovo I, Tver region, Middle Neolithic Karavaikha, Vologda region and Eneolithic layers of the Murzikhinsky II burial ground, which is located near the village of Alekseevskoye (Tatarstan) in the mouth of the Kama River. The data we obtained do not exclude that the Early Eneolithic Upper Volga Culture has local Mesolithic roots, which indicates the long-term preservation of the oldest gene pool of Europe in the central part of the Russian Plain.

Keywords

• archaeogenomics
• eastern europe
• upper volga culture
• genome of eastern hunter-gatherers
• late mesolithic
• early neolithic.