Archaeogenetic perspectives on the hunter-gatherers and prehistoric farmers of the Mediterranean

I applied state-of-the-art ancient DNA (aDNA) approaches to recover highly degraded DNA molecules from post-glacial hunter-gatherers and early farmers from the Mediterranean to investigate the demographic processes that underlie archaeological transitions after the Ice Age and during the expansion of farming practises. I placed a particular emphasis on examining the genomic evidence for crossings of the Mediterranean Sea, as was proposed by archaeologists based on similarities in material culture. Each of the manuscripts contributes crucial genomic reference points for Mediterranean areas where human occupation locally persisted during the Ice Age, or with some of the earliest indications for farming. In Manuscript A, I report the oldest ancient genome-wide data for Africa to date retrieved from nine ~15,000 calBP microlithic Iberomaurusian hunter-gatherers from the Mediterranean coast in Morocco (Van de Loosdrecht et al. 2018. Science). In Manuscript B, I report a genomic transect of ten individuals from the Iberian Peninsula from various sites with Upper Palaeolithic to Middle Neolithic occupations (~13,000-6,000 calBP) (Villalba-Mouco et al. 2019. Curr. Biol). In Manuscript C, I explore the multi-disciplinary potential of archaeogenetics, and jointly report genomic and isotopic data for dietary inference for a transect of 19 Mesolithic foragers and Early Neolithic farmers from Sicily (~10,700-7,200 calBP) (Van de Loosdrecht et al. 2020. BioRxiv). In the discussion I provide archaeogenetic perspectives on topics long been debated by scholars of Mediterranean prehistory: 1) the origin of the Iberomaurusian industry in Northwest Africa; 2) the admixture dynamics of European foragers after the Ice Age; 3) the genomic evidence for direct population interactions across the Mediterranean Sea; 4) the demographic processes underlying the transition from foraging to farming in the Mediterranean; and 5) the southern Mediterranean Neolithic expansion route.1. Introduction 1.1. The ancient DNA revolution: current state-of-the-art 1.2. The ~10,000-year trajectory from foraging to farming in the Mediterranean region 1.2.1. Northwestern Africa during and after the last Ice Age 1.2.2. Europe during and after the last Ice Age 1.2.3. The Neolithic Revolution: sedentary farming communities expand into the Mediterranean 2. Aims and objectives 3. Overview of manuscripts 3.1. Manuscript A 3.2. Manuscript B 3.3. Manuscript C 4. Author contributions 5. Manuscript A 6. Manuscript B 7. Manuscript C 8. Discussion 8.1. Archaeogenetic perspectives on the repopulation of northern Africa and Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum 8.1.1. Northwestern Africa 8.1.2. Europe 8.2. Is there genomic evidence that prehistoric Mediterranean peoples were in direct contact across the Mediterranean Sea? 8.3. Limitations of ancestry inferences using ancient DNA 8.4. Conclusion 8.5. Outloo