乳糖不耐癥在歐洲遺傳中已經(jīng)有幾千年的歷史了

乳糖不耐癥在歐洲遺傳中已經(jīng)有幾千年的歷史了

Ancient cattle and sheep farmers from modern-day Ukraine gradually mixed with Europeans as far back as 2800 BCE, and among them was the oldest known Europeans to have genetic characteristics of lactose intolerance.

早在公元前2800年，來自今天烏克蘭的古代牛羊農(nóng)民就逐漸與歐洲人融合在一起，其中包括已知的最古老的具有乳糖不耐癥遺傳特征的歐洲人。

Genetic analysis and radiocarbon dating of nearly 100 ancient skeletal remains from Neolithic settlements in Switzerland is lending insight into the continent’s earliest inhabitants, both illuminating where they came from and how they lived, according to a new study published in Nature Communications.

發(fā)表在《自然通訊》雜志上的一項新研究稱，對瑞士新石器時代(ne石器時代)定居點的近100具古代遺骸進行基因分析和放射性碳測年，有助于深入了解該大陸最早的居民，這兩項研究都揭示了他們的來源和生活方式。

Madison Dapcevich

Switzerland’s rich archaeological record makes it a prime location to study the origins of Europeans. Neolithic settlements are found throughout Central Europe, from lakeshores and bogs to Alpine valleys and high mountain spaces. Previous studies have shown that during the Neolithic period, around the time when civilizations started to rise about 12,000 years ago, drastic changes occurred as sheep and cattle farmers arrived from the Pontic-Caspian steppe in modern Ukraine. At this time, an emergence of Corded Ware Complex (CWC) cultural groups began, groups believed to be the common ancestor of Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic groups. But exactly when these migrants arrived in Central Europe and how they mixed with the residents at the time has largely remained a mystery.

瑞士豐富的考古記錄使它成為研究歐洲人起源的最佳地點。新石器時代的定居點遍布中歐，從湖岸和沼澤到高山峽谷和高山空間。之前的研究表明，在新石器時代，大約在12000年前，人類文明開始崛起的時候，當綿羊和牛的農(nóng)民從現(xiàn)在烏克蘭的里海大草原來到這里時，發(fā)生了巨大的變化。在這個時候，出現(xiàn)了繩紋陶器復合體(CWC)文化群體，這些群體被認為是凱爾特、日耳曼、波羅的海和斯拉夫群體的共同祖先。但這些移民究竟是何時抵達中歐的，以及他們當時是如何與當?shù)鼐用裣嗵幍?，在很大程度上仍是個謎。

To begin to piece the ancient puzzle together, a team of researchers from the University of Tübingen, the University of Bern, and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History radiocarbon-dated bones from 96 ancient skeletons across 13 Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in Switzerland, southern Germany, and the Alsace region of France. Mitochondrial genomes were completely reconstructed and compared against nearly 400 genomic information held within a databank.

為了解開這個古老的謎團，來自圖賓根大學、伯爾尼大學和馬克斯·普朗克人類歷史科學研究所的一組研究人員對來自瑞士、德國南部和法國阿爾薩斯地區(qū)13個新石器時代和青銅時代遺址的96具古代骨骼進行了放射性碳測定。線粒體基因組完全重建，并與數(shù)據(jù)庫中保存的近400個基因組信息進行比較。

Layer of the human remains found in situ in the Dolmen of Oberbipp in Switzerland. Archäologischer Dienst des Kanton Bern (Switzerland), Marianne Ramstein

The researchers found that the new group arrived as early as 2800 BCE but their genetic dispersal was complex and gradual. By and large, social and family structures remained biologically the same before and after people arrived from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, suggesting that the different societies did not intermix.

研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，這個新群體早在公元前2800年就出現(xiàn)了，但他們的遺傳擴散是復雜而漸進的?？偟膩碚f，從池塘-里海大草原來的人之前和之后，社會和家庭結構在生物學上保持不變，這表明不同的社會沒有混合。

"Remarkably, we identified several female individuals without any detectable steppe-related ancestry up to 1,000 years after this ancestry arrives in the region," said lead author Anja Furtwängler of the University of Tübingen's Institute for Archaeological Sciences, in a statement.

研究報告的主要撰寫人、圖賓根大學考古科學研究所的安雅•弗特文格勒在一份聲明中說:“值得注意的是，在這些女性祖先來到這一地區(qū)1000多年后，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了一些沒有任何可檢測到的與祖先進化有關的女性祖先。”

Further genetic testing and analysis of stable isotopes determined that many societies were patrilocal, meaning that the men stayed where they were born and women came from distant families yet still did not have steppe ancestry.

進一步的基因測試和對穩(wěn)定同位素的分析確定，許多社會是父系社會，這意味著男性呆在他們出生的地方，而女性來自遙遠的家庭，但仍然沒有草原祖先。

"Since the parents of the mobile females in our study couldn't have had steppe-related ancestry either, it remains to be shown where in Central Europe such populations were present, possibly in the Alpine mountain valleys that were less connected to the lower lands," said Johannes Krause, director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at MPI-SHH and senior author of the study.

“因為在我們的研究中，這些移動的雌性動物的父母也不可能有與階梯式進化相關的祖先，所以在中歐的哪些地方存在這樣的種群，可能是在與低地聯(lián)系較少的高山峽谷中，還有待發(fā)現(xiàn)。”MPI-SHH考古遺傳學系主任、該研究的資深作者約翰內斯·克勞斯說。

The study also presents one of the earliest evidence of adult lactose intolerance in Europe, dating back to around 2100 BCE, a genetic mutation that is of “high frequency” in Europe today but is largely absent in late and middle Neolithic samples. This suggests that lactose intolerance increased in frequency at the end of the Neolithic period and increased after the beginning of the Bronze Age.

該研究還提出了歐洲最早的成人乳糖不耐癥的證據(jù)之一，可以追溯到公元前2100年左右，這是一種基因突變，在今天的歐洲是“高頻率”的，但在新石器時代晚期和中期的樣本中基本不存在。這表明乳糖不耐癥在新石器時代末期增加，在青銅時代開始后增加。