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. 2016 Jan 19:7:10326.
doi: 10.1038/ncomms10326.

Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons

Rui Martiniano  1 , Anwen Caffell  2   3 , Malin Holst  2   4 , Kurt Hunter-Mann  5 , Janet Montgomery  3 , Gundula Müldner  6 , Russell L McLaughlin  1 , Matthew D Teasdale  1 , Wouter van Rheenen  7 , Jan H Veldink  7 , Leonard H van den Berg  7 , Orla Hardiman  8 , Maureen Carroll  9 , Steve Roskams  4 , John Oxley  10 , Colleen Morgan  4 , Mark G Thomas  11 , Ian Barnes  12 , Christine McDonnell  5 , Matthew J Collins  4 , Daniel G Bradley  1
Affiliations

Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons

Rui Martiniano et al. Nat Commun. .

Abstract

The purported migrations that have formed the peoples of Britain have been the focus of generations of scholarly controversy. However, this has not benefited from direct analyses of ancient genomes. Here we report nine ancient genomes (∼ 1 ×) of individuals from northern Britain: seven from a Roman era York cemetery, bookended by earlier Iron-Age and later Anglo-Saxon burials. Six of the Roman genomes show affinity with modern British Celtic populations, particularly Welsh, but significantly diverge from populations from Yorkshire and other eastern English samples. They also show similarity with the earlier Iron-Age genome, suggesting population continuity, but differ from the later Anglo-Saxon genome. This pattern concords with profound impact of migrations in the Anglo-Saxon period. Strikingly, one Roman skeleton shows a clear signal of exogenous origin, with affinities pointing towards the Middle East, confirming the cosmopolitan character of the Empire, even at its northernmost fringes.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Principal component analysis.
(a) PCA and (b) model-based clustering using NGSadmix (K=3) of Driffield Terrace, Iron-Age and Anglo-Saxon samples merged with European, West Asian, Middle Eastern and North African populations. Population key: Ad, Adygei; Ar, Armenian; Ba, Basque; Bed, Bedouin; Be, Belorussian; Bu, Bulgarian; Ch, Chuvash; Cy, Cypriot; Dr, Druze; Ea, East Sicilian; Eg, Egyptian; En, English; Fi, Finnish; Fr, French; Ge, Georgian; GA, Germany/Austria; Gr, Greek; Hu, Hungarian; Ira, Iranian; Ir, Ireland; Jo, Jordanian; Le, Lezgin; Li, Lithuanian; Mo, Moroccan; Moz, Mozabite; Nit, North Italian; Nor, Norwegian; Or, Orcadian; Pa, Palestinian; Po, Polish; Ro, Romanian; Ru, Russian; Sa, Sardinian; Sau, Saudi; Sc, Scottish; So, South Italian; Sp, Spanish; Sy, Syrian; Tun, Tunisian; Tk, Turkish; Tu, Tuscan; UAE, United Arab Emirates; We, Welsh; WS, West Sicilian; Ye, Yemeni.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Combined percentile scores of modern European samples ranked by IBS to the Roman York genotypes.
IBS reveals strongest affinity to modern Welsh, followed by Irish and Scottish. One outlier 3DRIF-26 was excluded from this analysis.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Principal component analysis.
(a) PCA of the Roman samples from Driffield Terrace (excluding one outlier), one Iron-Age individual and one Anglo-Saxon merged with modern Irish, British and Dutch genotype data. (b) Boxplot of PC1 broken down by subregion. The symbols on the left represent the significance of a Mann–Whitney test performed to compare the Roman population with all other populations in the data set. There were no significant differences between the Roman sample and the present-day Welsh, Northern and North Western English samples included in this analysis; all other regions had significantly different median values for PC1. Population key: Du, Dutch; En, English; Ir, Irish; NS, not significant; Sc, Scottish; Wa, Wales. NS-P>0.05; *0.05>P>0.01; **0.01>P>0.0001; ***P<0.0001.
Figure 4
Figure 4. FineSTRUCTURE analysis of modern British genotypes and IBS affinity to the British Roman cohort.
(a) The inferred clusters of moderns, their regional origins, the order of emergence of these groups and numbers of individuals in each.Below, median IBS between each cluster and the ancient Roman samples is plotted; the most prominent feature is their relative similarity to the predominantly Welsh clusters. (b) Plots of median cluster IBS values of the Romans versus the single Iron-Age genome and, below, versus the Anglo-Saxon sample. The strong relationship in the former is some indication of Iron-Age Roman genetic continuity, whereas discontinuity between Romans and the Anglo-Saxon is supported by their lack of correlation.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Interpolated maps of allele frequency comparing Roman York samples and modern populations from the British Isles.
(a) PC1 median values; (b) blood group O frequency; (c) Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b1a2-M269 frequency.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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