Variable kinship patterns in Neolithic Anatolia revealed by ancient genomes

Area of Science:

• Archaeogenetics
• Neolithic Studies
• Bioarchaeology

Background:

• Understanding the social organization of early Neolithic sedentary societies in Southwest Asia is challenging due to limitations in material culture analysis.
• Neolithic Anatolian communities' practice of burying the dead beneath domestic structures offers a unique opportunity to study household composition and social structure through human remains.

Observation:

• This study analyzed 59 ancient genomes from Neolithic Anatolian sites, including new data from Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük, to infer genetic relatedness among individuals co-buried within domestic buildings.
• Pedigree relationships were reconstructed using autosomal and X chromosome kinship coefficients, maternal markers, and radiocarbon dating.

Findings:

• In early Neolithic villages (9th-8th millennia BCE) like Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu, siblings and parent-offspring pairings were frequently found within domestic structures, indicating close genetic relationships among co-burials.
• Conversely, in later Neolithic sites (7th millennium BCE) such as Çatalhöyük and Barcın, close genetic relatives were rarely found among subadults interred within and around houses.

Implications:

• The findings suggest that the role of genetic relatedness in burial location choice varied across Neolithic Anatolian communities and over time.
• This supports the hypothesis that domestic structures in sites like Çatalhöyük may have served as burial places for social units comprising both related and unrelated individuals, highlighting the diversity of Neolithic kin structures.