Ancient Siberian genomes reveal previously unknown hunter-gatherer population

Researchers uncover ancient Siberian genomes which reveal a previously undescribed group of early hunter-gatherer population in Neolithic Altai-Sayan region

The movement of people across the Bering Sea from North Asia to North America is a well-known phenomenon in early human history – but their actual genetic makeup has remained a mystery due to the lack of ancient genomes analyzed in this region.

Now, this has all changed. Researchers reporting in Current Biology describe genomes from ten individuals up to 7,500 years old that help to fill the gap and show gene flow from people moving in the opposite direction from North America to North Asia.

Their analysis reveals a previously undescribed group of early Holocene Siberian hunter-gatherer people that lived in the Neolithic Altai-Sayan region, near to where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan come together. The genetic data show they were descendants of both paleo-Siberian and Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) people.

Who were the Altai hunter-gatherer group?

“We describe a previously unknown hunter-gatherer population in the Altai as early as 7,500 years old, which is a mixture between two distinct groups that lived in Siberia during the last Ice Age,” explains Cosimo Posth at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and senior author of the study.

“The Altai hunter-gatherer group contributed to many contemporaneous and subsequent populations across North Asia, showing how great the mobility of those foraging communities was”

“The Altai hunter-gatherer group contributed to many contemporaneous and subsequent populations across North Asia, showing how great the mobility of those foraging communities was.”

Posth adds that the Altai region is the location where a new archaic hominin group, the Denisovans, was discovered.

However, the region is also significant in human history because it is a crossroad for population movements between northern Siberia, Central Asia, and East Asia over millennia.

Posth and colleagues also believe that the unique gene pool they uncovered may represent an optimal source for the inferred ANE-related population that contributed to Bronze Age groups from North and Inner Asia. This includes the Lake Baikal hunter-gatherers, Okunevo-associated pastoralists, and Tarim Basin mummies.

Researchers also found Ancient Northeast Asian (ANA) ancestry—which had initially been described in Neolithic hunter-gatherers from the Russian Far East—in another Neolithic Altai-Sayan individual associated with distinct cultural features.

ANA ancestry spread 1,500 kilometers farther than previously observed

The findings reveal the spread of ANA ancestry about 1,500 kilometers farther to the west than previously observed. The team also identified 7,000-year-old individuals with Jomon-associated ancestry in the Russian Far East, indicating links with hunter-gatherer groups from the Japanese Archipelago.

The data is also consistent with multiple phases of gene flow from North America to northeastern Asia over the last 5,000 years, reaching the Kamchatka Peninsula and central Siberia. These findings highlight a largely interconnected population throughout North Asia from the early Holocene onwards.

Very different groups lived in the same region at the same time

“The finding that surprised me the most is from an individual dated to a similar period as the other Altai hunter-gatherers but with a completely different genetic profile”

“The finding that surprised me the most is from an individual dated to a similar period as the other Altai hunter-gatherers but with a completely different genetic profile, showing genetic affinities to populations located in the Russian Far East,” says Ke Wang at Fudan University, China, and lead author of the study.

“Interestingly, the Nizhnetytkesken individual was found in a cave containing rich burial goods with a religious costume and objects interpreted as possible representation of shamanism.”

The finding implies that individuals with very different profiles and backgrounds lived in the same region around the same time, Wang states.

“It is not clear if the Nizhnetytkesken individual came from far away or the population from which he derived was located close by,” she says.

“However, his grave goods appear different than other local archeological contexts implying mobility of both culturally and genetically diverse individuals into the Altai region.”

The genetic data from the Altai hunter-gatherer group shows that North Asia harbored highly connected groups as early as 10,000 years ago, across long geographic distances.

“This suggests that human migrations and admixtures were the norm and not the exception also for ancient hunter-gatherer societies,” Posth concludes.