Agriculture began during the Neolithic period, about 10,000 years ago, and now a new study suggests that the onset and extent of this practice was not the work of a single group, but occurred in many nearby towns, but differentiated genetically.
Where and how the transition from hunter-gatherers originated sedentary agriculture is discussed and the results of a new study published today in Science, support the hypothesis that culture agriculture spread throughout Europe, Africa and Asia from various sources of population.
“It had been assumed that the early farmers belonged to a single, genetically homogeneous population. However, we discovered that there were deep genetic differences between these early farming populations, which indicates ancestors very different, “said one of the study authors Garrett Hellenthan of University College London.
The team studied the DNA of some of the first farmers found in the Iranian Zagros region and found that its genome was very different from the first farmers Aegean and Europe.
However, experts do that identified similarities between the DNA of Neolithic farmers and people living in South Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
“We know that agricultural techniques, including various plants and pets, sprang up along the Fertile Crescent Asian -Mesopotamia, between the lower courses of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers without a center in particular, “said professor Mark Thomas from the same institution.
But finding that this region was formed by populations of genetically very different farmers “was a surprise. We estimate that seceded years between 46,000 and 77,000, so it is almost certain that had different physical aspects and spoke different languages. It’s almost like we should be talking about a federal origin of agriculture, “he added the expert.
To obtain more data, experts sequenced DNA from four skeletons of the Iranian region of Zagros, the place where they have found some of the oldest in the emergence of agriculture evidence.
Genetic analysis discovered the existence of a group whose DNA had not been sequenced so far and has very different characteristics of the neolithic men of Anatolia, the population is often seen as the most likely ancestor of European farmers.
These results suggest that farmers in the region of Zagros, whose genetic sequences great similarities with the current populations of Pakistan and Afghanistan were not the predecessors of the first European farmers.
You may secede from the ancient genomes of the Neolithic populations of Anatolia, more than 40,000 years ago, according to the authors, which served with a separate expansion source of agriculture .
The transition from nomadic hunting and gathering to settled agriculture was one of the most important behavioral changes since the appearance of humans in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
This transition led to profound changes in societies, including a higher density of population, new diseases, social inequality, urban life and ultimately the emergence of ancient civilizations, says a statement.
Such was the impact of agriculture in our species that archaeologists have debated for more than a century on how it originated and spread to border regions such as Europe, North Africa and south Asia, said Stephen Shennan.
The team has shown, for the first time that different populations in several areas of the Fertile Crescent came to similar solutions in their search for a new way of life in the new conditions created by the end of the last Ice Age, “he added
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