Articles
7 articles on bronze-age, ancient-DNA research written up for readers who want the evidence, not just the headline.
The Bronze Age, roughly 3300 to 1200 BC in western Eurasia, is when most of the ancestry structure of living Europeans and West Asians was set. Steppe herders spread out of the Pontic-Caspian region after 3000 BC, Beaker groups replaced most of Britain's Neolithic population, the Aegean palaces rose on a farmer base, and the Canaanite cities of the Levant took their genetic shape. Carrying a Bronze Age layer is a statement about descent and nothing else; it does not make anyone a Yamnaya or a Mycenaean.
The articles trace Yamnaya ancestry to Caucasus-Lower Volga and Dnipro-Don populations, explain what a steppe percentage measures and how to estimate one with qpAdm or Global25, follow a 30-genome transect of southwestern England through the Beaker turnover and the reuse of older monuments, read 102 prehistoric Aegean genomes for migration and cousin unions, present the Canaanite source built from Megiddo and Hazor, and describe the genetically isolated Tarim Basin mummies who adopted dairy and crops from their neighbours.
Model a genome against Bronze Age sources
A new 30-genome transect of southwestern England confirms the sharp Beaker-era turnover — and shows the genetically distinct newcomers burying their dead inside monuments built a millennium earlier by the people they replaced.
Why the Jewish communities of Mesopotamia, Persia and Kurdistan sit closest to the Bronze Age Levant, what the Iranian-related layer in their genomes is, and how a qpAdm model resolves a Mizrahi genome.
Who the Canaanites were genetically, who carries their ancestry today, and why the qpAdm source catalog now has a Canaanite (2000 - 1200 BC) population built from the Megiddo and Hazor genomes.
Who the Western Steppe Herders were, how steppe ancestry spread across Europe and Asia after 3000 BC, what a 'steppe percentage' actually measures, and how to estimate yours with qpAdm or Global25 from a raw DNA file.
Ancient DNA traces Yamnaya ancestry to Caucasus–Lower Volga and Dnipro–Don populations before the great Bronze Age steppe expansion.
DNA from 102 prehistoric Aegeans traces migration into Crete and Greece, Mycenaean-era mobility, family burials and frequent cousin unions.
DNA from 13 early Tarim Basin mummies reveals a genetically isolated local population that adopted dairy, crops and technologies from neighbors.