Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal.
Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of the University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.
Mol Biol Evol. 2017 Dec 1;34(12):3232-3242. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msx256.
During the Neolithic, human populations underwent cultural and technological developments that led to an agricultural revolution. Although the population genetics and evolution of European Neolithic populations have been extensively studied, little is known regarding the Neolithic expansion in North Africa with respect to Europe. One could expect that the different environmental and geological conditions at both shores of the Mediterranean Sea could have led to contrasting expansions. In order to test this hypothesis, we compared the Neolithic expansion in Europe and North Africa accounting for possible migration between them through the Strait of Gibraltar. We analyzed the entire X chromosome of 580 individuals from 20 populations spatially distributed along the North of Africa and Europe. Next, we applied approximate Bayesian computation based on extensive spatially explicit computer simulations to select among alternative scenarios of migration through the Strait of Gibraltar and to estimate population genetics parameters in both expansions. Our results suggest that, despite being more technologically advanced, Neolithic populations did not expand faster than Paleolithic populations, which could be interpreted as a consequence of a more sedentary lifestyle. We detected reciprocal Neolithic migration between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar. Counterintuitively, we found that the studied Neolithic expansions presented similar levels of carrying capacity and migration, and occurred at comparable speeds, suggesting a similar demic process of substitution of hunter-gatherer populations. Altogether, the Neolithic expansion through both Mediterranean shores was not so different, perhaps because these populations shared similar technical abilities and lifestyle patterns.
在新石器时代，人类经历了文化和技术的发展，从而引发了农业革命。尽管欧洲新石器时代人口的群体遗传学和进化已经得到了广泛的研究，但对于北非的新石器时代扩张与欧洲的关系，我们知之甚少。人们可能会期望地中海两岸不同的环境和地质条件会导致截然不同的扩张。为了验证这一假设，我们比较了欧洲和北非的新石器时代扩张，同时考虑了通过直布罗陀海峡可能发生的移民。我们分析了来自 20 个分布在北非和欧洲北部的人群的 580 个人的整个 X 染色体。接下来，我们应用了基于广泛空间显式计算机模拟的近似贝叶斯计算，以在通过直布罗陀海峡的移民替代方案中进行选择，并估计这两个扩张中的群体遗传学参数。我们的结果表明，尽管新石器时代的人口技术更先进，但他们的扩张速度并没有比旧石器时代的人口快，这可能是由于更定居的生活方式所致。我们检测到通过直布罗陀海峡，伊比利亚半岛和北非之间存在着新石器时代的相互迁移。出乎意料的是，我们发现所研究的新石器时代扩张具有相似的承载能力和迁移水平，并且以相似的速度发生，这表明了狩猎采集者人口的类似的替代过程。总之，通过地中海两岸的新石器时代扩张并没有太大的不同，也许是因为这些人口具有相似的技术能力和生活方式模式。
