Stockholm university

New study on ancient DNA from Mesopotamia

Archeologists from Stockholm University have participated in a new study on DNA from 13 individuals at the Stone age site Çayönü in south-eastern Turkey.

Aerial view of site
Aerial view of excavation site at Çayönü in south-eastern Turkey.

The Stone age site Çayönü presents a case of complex genetics and archaeology. It is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in upper Mesopotamia dated roughly to 8 000 BCE. Today it is located in south-eastern Turkey. The archaeology at the site is of the type that is known from the Tigris and Euphrates basins and Northwest Zagros. For example, the monumental architecture and the stone tools.
An international study, coordinated from Ankara, in which scientists from Stockholm University participated has analysed DNA from 13 individuals from this site.

“This is not an easy material to work with, it is old and from a warm area, and thus the DNA is heavily degraded. Most fascinating is that the people from Çayönü are genetically similar to chronologically contemporary people from Anatolia in the west, while the material archaeology seems to be from the east”, says Anders Götherström, Professor in Molecular Archaeology at Stockholm University and research leader at the Centre for Palaeogenetics*.

 

Obvious cases of migration

Buried skeleton
Buried skeleton at the excavation site.

Thus, this is a case where ideas and knowledge seem to have been communicated between groups of slightly different origin.
“But we do see obvious cases of migration here too. There is a little girl, a bit younger than two years, among the 13 people we have analysed, and she was clearly a migrant from the east, the areas where the material culture seems to originate from”, says Anders Götherström.

This little girl is interesting in other aspects too. For example, she is one of the individuals who have been subject to artificial cranial deformation.

In other aspects the material seems to follow genetic patterns that is already know from the area. For example, there are several cases of co-burials of closely related individuals. And it has already been shown that the earliest Neolithic groups in Anatolia tended to bury closely related individuals together to a larger extent than latter groups.

 

Important for studies of Mesopotamia

Recent years has seen several genetic studies of early Neolithic humans from Anatolia and the Levant. However, material from Mesopotamia has not been equally well studied.

“This has been unfortunate since Mesopotamia is an important area in the shift from a hunter/gatherer economy to a farming economy. Thus, this study in Science Advances will be a much appreciated addition to the Neolithisation studies”, says Anders Götherström.

Read article in Science Advances.

*The Centre for Palaeogenetics (CPG) is a joint venture between Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History. Read more.