Out-of-Anatolia: Cultural and genetic interactions during the Neolithic expansion in the Aegean

Koptekin D., Aydogan A., Karamurat C., ALTINIŞIK N. E., Vural K. B., KAZANCI D. D., ...More

SCIENCE, vol.388, no.6754, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus) identifier identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 388 Issue: 6754
  • Publication Date: 2025
  • Doi Number: 10.1126/science.adr3326
  • Journal Name: SCIENCE
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Artic & Antarctic Regions, BIOSIS, Chemical Abstracts Core, EMBASE, Environment Index, Gender Studies Database, Geobase, Linguistic Bibliography, MathSciNet, MEDLINE, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Psycinfo, zbMATH, Nature Index
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

West Anatolia has been a crucial yet elusive element in the Neolithic expansion from the Fertile Crescent to Europe. In this work, we describe the changing genetic and cultural landscapes of early Holocene West Anatolia using 30 new paleogenomes. We show that Neolithization in West Anatolia was a multifaceted process, characterized by the assimilation of Neolithic practices by local foragers, the influx of eastern populations, and their admixture, with their descendants subsequently establishing Neolithic Southeast Europe. We then coanalyzed genetic and cultural similarities across early Holocene Anatolian and Aegean Neolithic villages using 58 material culture elements. Cultural distances among villages correlate with their spatial distances but not with their genetic distances after controlling for geography. This suggests that cultural change was often decoupled from genetically visible mobility.