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. 2021 Oct 27;38(11):4908-4917.
doi: 10.1093/molbev/msab216.

Genetic Continuity of Bronze Age Ancestry with Increased Steppe-Related Ancestry in Late Iron Age Uzbekistan

Vikas Kumar  1   2 , E Andrew Bennett  1 , Dongyue Zhao  3 , Yun Liang  3 , Yunpeng Tang  3 , Meng Ren  3 , Qinyan Dai  1 , Xiaotian Feng  1 , Peng Cao  1 , Ruowei Yang  1 , Feng Liu  1 , Wanjing Ping  1 , Ming Zhang  1   4 , Manyu Ding  1   4 , Melinda A Yang  5 , Berdimurodov Amridin  6 , Hasanov Muttalib  6 , Jianxin Wang  3 , Qiaomei Fu  1   2   4
Affiliations

Genetic Continuity of Bronze Age Ancestry with Increased Steppe-Related Ancestry in Late Iron Age Uzbekistan

Vikas Kumar et al. Mol Biol Evol. .

Abstract

Although Uzbekistan and Central Asia are known for the well-studied Bronze Age civilization of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), the lesser-known Iron Age was also a dynamic period that resulted in increased interaction and admixture among different cultures from this region. To broaden our understanding of events that impacted the demography and population structure of this region, we generated 27 genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism capture data sets of Late Iron Age individuals around the Historical Kushan time period (∼2100-1500 BP) from three sites in South Uzbekistan. Overall, Bronze Age ancestry persists into the Iron Age in Uzbekistan, with no major replacements of populations with Steppe-related ancestry. However, these individuals suggest diverse ancestries related to Iranian farmers, Anatolian farmers, and Steppe herders, with a small amount of West European Hunter Gatherer, East Asian, and South Asian Hunter Gatherer ancestry as well. Genetic affinity toward the Late Bronze Age Steppe herders and a higher Steppe-related ancestry than that found in BMAC populations suggest an increased mobility and interaction of individuals from the Northern Steppe in a Southward direction. In addition, a decrease of Iranian and an increase of Anatolian farmer-like ancestry in Uzbekistan Iron Age individuals were observed compared with the BMAC populations from Uzbekistan. Thus, despite continuity from the Bronze Age, increased admixture played a major role in the shift from the Bronze to the Iron Age in southern Uzbekistan. This mixed ancestry is also observed in other parts of the Steppe and Central Asia, suggesting more widespread admixture among local populations.

Keywords: ancient DNA; evolution; population genomics.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Geographical location, mitochondrial haplogroup, PCA and admixture analysis of Uz_IA individuals. (A) Map showing the geographical location in South Uzbekistan of the three Uz_IA archaeological sites studied. The pie chart shows the distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups of Uz_IA individuals. (B) PCA of newly sequenced Uz_IA individuals along with published ancient populations from West and East Eurasia projected onto present-day populations. (C) ADMIXTURE ancestry components (K = 8) of Uz_IA and published populations from West and East Eurasia. The three main ancestry components are shown in green, red and violet representing ancestry maximized in Anatolian farmers, Iranian farmers, and Hunter Gatherers from West Siberia, respectively. Only the unrelated individuals having >20k SNPs are used for the analyses. The Dehkan site with only one individual (<20k SNPs) has been discarded from any further analyses. Only a subset of ancient samples, which are spatially and temporally important, is shown and supplementary figures of PCA and ADMIXTURE show all present-day and ancient populations.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Outgroup f3- and f4-statistics of Uz_IA populations. (A) Outgroup-f3 test (f3(Uz_IA, X; Mbuti) > 0) showing the 25 populations with the highest affinity (most positive) to Uz_IA samples. Most of these populations are from the Central Steppe, and among them MLBA populations from Kazakhstan show the highest affinity. Horizontal bars represent two standard errors. (B) Results of f4-statistics of the form f4(Rabat/Serkharakat, X; Rabat/Serkharkat, Mbuti). The plot shows the significant Z-scores of the f4-statistics test results. The negative values show a greater affinity of both Rabat and Serkharakat to the ancient populations compared with each other. The ancient populations are subgrouped as BMAC, Central Steppe EMBA (CS_EMBA), Central Steppe MLBA (CS_MLBA), Eastern Steppe EMBA (ES_EMBA), Steppe LBA (Steppe_LBA), Western Steppe EMBA (WS_EMBA), Western Steppe MLBA (WS_MLBA), Steppe MLBA with additional affinity to BMAC (ST_MLBA_oBMAC), and Steppe MLBA with additional affinity to West Siberian Hunter Gatherer (ST_MLBA_oWSHG). The individuals are grouped similar to Narasimhan et al. (2019).
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