Modern humans' paleogenomics and the new evidences on the European prehistory

Abstract

The modern human settlement of Europe is a complex process with overimposed migrations and regionalisation episodes, as well as adaptive processes that shaped the genome of modern populations. New developments in massive sequencing techniques allow now the generation of an unprecedented amount of genomic data, including the genotyping of a large number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and the generation of complete ancient genomes. These paleogenomic data will have much more resolution for studying the past than genomic data from present-day individuals because migration, admixture and population replacement can confound the interpretation of current genetic diversity. However, their interpretation will require a real multidisciplinary effort, involving population geneticists, archaeologists and anthropologists. Here, we explain how paleogenomics is providing new insights into a wide range of topics such as demography, undetected migrations, mating strategies or adaptive processes of prehistoric European populations.Statement of significance The study of the prehistoric modern humans' settlement of Europe has been until recently restricted to fields such as archaeology and physical anthropology. However, with the advent of the new sequencing technologies in the last few years, it is increasingly possible to retrieve massive genomic data from these past populations, and to directly test previous hypothesis on human population movements and affinities. We provide here a guideline of the main areas of study of the past that will likely be impacted by paleogenomic studies in the next years.Data availability The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. All relevant data are contained within the paper.