A Genetic History of the Near East from an aDNA Time Course Sampling Eight Points in the Past 4,000 Years

The Iron and Classical Ages in the Near East were marked by population expansions carrying cultural transformations that shaped human history, but the genetic impact of these events on the people who lived through them is little-known. Here, we sequenced the whole genomes of 19 individuals who each lived during one of four time periods between 800 BCE and 200 CE in Beirut on the Eastern Mediterranean coast at the center of the ancient world ’s great civilizations. We combined these data with published data to traverse eight archaeological periods and observed any genetic changes as they arose.

Source: The American Journal of Human Genetics - May 27, 2020 Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Marc Haber, Joyce Nassar, Mohamed A. Almarri, Tina Saupe, Lehti Saag, Samuel J. Griffith, Claude Doumet-Serhal, Julien Chanteau, Muntaha Saghieh-Beydoun, Yali Xue, Christiana L. Scheib, Chris Tyler-Smith Tags: Report Source Type: research