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Science 11 November 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5750, pp. 1016 - 1018
DOI: 10.1126/science.1118725
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Reports

Ancient DNA from the First European Farmers in 7500-Year-Old Neolithic Sites

Wolfgang Haak,1* Peter Forster,2 Barbara Bramanti,1 Shuichi Matsumura,2 Guido Brandt,1 Marc Tänzer,1 Richard Villems,3 Colin Renfrew,2 Detlef Gronenborn,4 Kurt Werner Alt,1 Joachim Burger1

The ancestry of modern Europeans is a subject of debate among geneticists, archaeologists, and anthropologists. A crucial question is the extent to which Europeans are descended from the first European farmers in the Neolithic Age 7500 years ago or from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers who were present in Europe since 40,000 years ago. Here we present an analysis of ancient DNA from early European farmers. We successfully extracted and sequenced intact stretches of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 24 out of 57 Neolithic skeletons from various locations in Germany, Austria, and Hungary. We found that 25% of the Neolithic farmers had one characteristic mtDNA type and that this type formerly was widespread among Neolithic farmers in Central Europe. Europeans today have a 150-times lower frequency (0.2%) of this mtDNA type, revealing that these first Neolithic farmers did not have a strong genetic influence on modern European female lineages. Our finding lends weight to a proposed Paleolithic ancestry for modern Europeans.

1 Institut für Anthropologie, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Saarstrasse 21, D-55099 Mainz, Germany.
2 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK.
3 Estonian Biocentre, Tartu University, 23 Riia Str, Tartu, 51010, Estonia.
4 Römisch-Germanisches Zentral-museum, Ernst-Ludwig-Platz 2, D-55116 Mainz, Germany.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed at the Molecular Archaeology Group, Institute of Anthropology, Colonel Kleinmann Weg 2, SBII 02, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz D-55128, Mainz, Germany. E-mail: haakw{at}uni-mainz.de

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)