| Title: | Capturing the fusion of two ancestries and kinship structures in Merovingian Flanders |
| Journal: | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
| Published: | 24 Jun 2024 |
| Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38913897/ |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2406734121 |
Publication 11809
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Abstract
The Merovingian period (5th to 8th cc AD) was a time of demographic, socioeconomic, cultural, and political realignment in Western Europe. Here, we report the whole-genome shotgun sequence data of 30 human skeletal remains from a coastal Late Merovingian site of Koksijde (675 to 750 AD), alongside 18 remains from two Early to Late Medieval sites in present-day Flanders, Belgium. We find two distinct ancestries, one shared with Early Medieval England and the Netherlands, while the other, minor component, reflecting likely continental Gaulish ancestry. Kinship analyses identified no large pedigrees characteristic to elite burials revealing instead a high modularity of distant relationships among individuals of the main ancestry group. In contrast, individuals with >90% Gaulish ancestry had no kinship links among sampled individuals. Evidence for population structure and major differences in the extent of Gaulish ancestry in the main group, including in a mother-daughter pair, suggests ongoing admixture in the community at the time of their burial. The isotopic and genetic evidence combined supports a model by which the burials, representing an established coastal nonelite community, had incorporated migrants from inland populations. The main group of burials at Koksijde shows an abundance of >5 cM long shared allelic intervals with the High Medieval site nearby, implying long-term continuity and suggesting that similarly to Britain, the Early Medieval ancestry shifts left a significant and long-lasting impact on the genetic makeup of the Flemish population. We find substantial allele frequency differences between the two ancestry groups in pigmentation and diet-associated variants, including those linked with lactase persistence, likely reflecting ancestry change rather than local adaptation.</p>
31 Authors
- Stefania Sasso
- Lehti Saag
- Rachèl Spros
- Owyn Beneker
- Ludovica Molinaro
- Simone A. Biagini
- Alexander Lehouck
- Katrien Van De Vijver
- Ruoyun Hui
- Eugenia D'Atanasio
- Alena Kushniarevich
- Helja Kabral
- Ene Metspalu
- Meriam Guellil
- Muhammad Q. A. Ali
- Jan Geypen
- Maxim Hoebreckx
- Birgit Berk
- Natasja De Winter
- Petra Driesen
- April Pijpelink
- Philip Van Damme
- Christiana L. Scheib
- Ewoud Deschepper
- Pieterjan Deckers
- Christophe Snoeck
- Marc Dewilde
- Anton Ervynck
- Kristiina Tambets
- Maarten H. D. Larmuseau
- Toomas Kivisild
1 Application
| Application ID | Title |
|---|---|
| 54698 | After the plague: genetic history of medieval Cambridge population in relation to present-day population of Britain |
Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health