However, the long isolation of the Caucasus strand of ancestry from other European components ended in the Bronze Age when it swept into Europe carried by horse-borne Steppe herders.
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The lineage originated in a group of hunter-gatherers that spilt from western hunter-gatherers after the “out of Africa” migration 45,000 years ago and moved to the Caucasus region on the border of Russian Federation and Georgia, the University of Cambridge reported.
Immediately after the expansion of anatomically modern humans into Europe from Africa, the lineage of this fourth Caucasus hunter-gatherer strand deviated from the western hunter-gatherers.
A second group who had settled in the Levant developed agriculture and then migrated into Europe around 6,000 to 7,000 years ago.
According to Andrea Manica from the University of Cambridge, the origins of the Yamnaya culture has always been a mystery up until now, including their DNA history. He adds that with this new evidence, this genetic makeup of Eastern European hunter gatherers along with the Caucasus hunter gatherers were the last human population who survived the last ice age in an isolated region.
The first sequencing of ancient genomes extracted from human remains that date back to the Late Upper Palaeolithic period over 13,000 years ago has revealed a previously unknown “fourth strand” of ancient European ancestry.
But thankfully, the team were able to locate genomes from the remains of two individuals found in a cave in Georgia, as caves are often the best locations for DNA to be preserved in due to their cool, dry environment.
The newly discovered ancestry may tell researchers a bit more about ancient populations of humans.
The Caucasus hunter-gatherer genome appeared to be mixed with the ancestors of early farmers from the Levant area, but broke of right before the most recent Glacial Maximum. During this time the Caucasus hunter-gatherer genome showed signs of increasing homogenization, meaning those with closer and closer DNA were procreating. Because of these genomes, we now have an improved understanding of the genetic diversity that occurred through Europe after the last Glacial Maximum. They had arrived around 20,000 years previously, having split from others of their kind who moved upward and westward after migrating from Africa.
“We knew that the Yamnaya had this big genetic component that we couldn’t place, and we can now see it was this ancient lineage hiding in the Caucasus during the last Ice Age”, said Manica.
But while it is associated with the earliest European humans, this particular strand influenced human development further east in central and south Asia, where this strand of ancestry may have flowed in with the bringers of Indo-Aryan languages. Ultimately, this led to increased genetic diversity and the Yamnaya culture was born, according to a news release.
“The Caucasus region sits nearly at a crossroads of the Eurasian landmass, with arguably the most sensible migration routes both west and east in the vicinity”, said professor Ron Pinhasi, lead senior author from the University College Dublin.
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David Lordkipanidze, Director of the Georgian National Museum and co-author of the paper, stated that this is the initial sequence from Georgia.
