瑞典乌普萨拉大学对古代基因组的一项分析挑战了一种假设，即巴斯克人在遗传上与一个残余的前农业人群有联系，该分析反而提示，现代巴斯克人与伊比利亚半岛的古代农民的关系最为密切。与欧洲其他地方关于农业革命即新石器时代转变的信息的丰富性相比，人们对这个时期西班牙和葡萄牙的情况知之甚少。Torsten Günther及其同事研究了提取自西班牙西班牙阿塔波卡山脉El Portalón洞穴的石器时代人类残骸的古代基因组。这组作者对来自生活在3500年到5500年前的8个人的残骸的基因组DNA进行了测序，这个时期是在向农业转变之后。这组作者使用了一批群体遗传学方法，把这些古代基因组与来自其他地区的古代欧洲人以及现代欧洲人的基因组进行了比较。这些结果提示，古代伊比利亚农民类似于其他早期欧洲农民，随着迁徙的农业人群与当地的狩猎-采集群体在几千年时间里的混合，起源于一个共同的祖先群体。这组作者说，这些结果还提示，现代巴斯克人与这些古代农民的关系最密切，而相对遗传隔离最可能出现在新石器时代转变之后。

原文链接：
Ancient genomes link early farmers from Atapuerca in Spain to modern-day Basques

原文摘要：
burial was found deliberately sheltered by large limestone blocks and three other blocks carefully protected the child´s head. The grave was scattered with grave goods suggesting a special status of this boy. The burial is covered by different ornaments, such as ceramics fragments of different sizes sealed with a green-like clay, vessel parts, flint flakes, a bone arrowhead, quartzite and, most surprisingly, the boy was left accompanied by an almost complete calf in anatomical position. This child possibly died of malnutrition as evidenced by a series of lesions in his skull and bones indicating the boy suffered from rickets and/or scurvy (Castilla et al, 2014) at different stages of his Life. Credit: Eneko Iriarte An international team led by researchers at Uppsala University reports a surprising discovery from the genomes of eight Iberian Stone-Age farmer remains. The analyses revealed that early Iberian farmers are the closest ancestors to modern-day Basques, in contrast previous hypotheses that linked Basques to earlier pre-farming groups.

作者：orsten Günther