Genome-wide data from two early Neolithic East Asian individuals dating to 7700 years ago

Abstract

Ancient genomes have revolutionized our understanding of Holocene prehistory and, particularly, the Neolithic transition in western Eurasia. In contrast, East Asia has so far received little attention, despite representing a core region at which the Neolithic transition took place indep endently ~3 millennia after its onset in the Near East. We report genome-wide data from two hunter-gatherers from Devil ’ s Gate, an early Neolithic cave site (dated to ~7.7 thousand years ago) located in East Asia, on the border between Russia and Korea. Both of these individ- uals are genetically most similar to geographically clos e modern populations from the Amur Basin, all speaking Tungusic languages, and, in particular, to the Ulchi. The s imilarity to nearby modern populations and the low levels of additional genetic material in the Ulc hi imply a high level of genetic continui ty in this region during the Holocene, a pattern that markedly contrast s with that reported for Europe