Analysis of ancient human mitochondrial DNA from Verteba Cave, Ukraine: insights into the origins and expansions of the Late Neolithic-Chalcolithic Cututeni-Tripolye Culture

Abstract

2 Background: The Eneolithic (~ 5,500 yrBP) site of Verteba Cave in Western Ukraine contains 3 the largest collection of human skeletal remains associated with the archaeological 4 Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture. Their subsistence economy is based largely on agro-pastoralism and 5 had some of the largest and most dense settlement sites during the Middle Neolithic in all of 6 Europe. To help understand the evolutionary history of the Tripolye people, we performed 7 mtDNA analyses on ancient human remains excavated from several chambers within the cave. 8 Results: Burials at Verteba Cave are largely commingled and secondary in nature. A total of 68 9 individual bone specimens were analyzed. Most of these specimens were found in association 10 with well-defined Tripolye artifacts. We determined 28 mtDNA D-Loop (368 bp) sequences 11 and defined 8 sequence types, belonging to haplogroups H, HV, W, K, and T. These results do 12 not suggest continuity with local pre-Eneolithic peoples, but rather complete population 13 replacement. We constructed maximum parsimonious networks from the data and generated 14 population genetic statistics. Nucleotide diversity (π) is low among all sequence types and our 15 network analysis indicates highly similar mtDNA sequence types for samples in chamber G3. 16 Using different sample sizes due to the uncertainly in number of individuals (11, 28, or 15), we 17 found Tajima’s D statistic to vary. When all sequence types are included (11 or 28), we do not 18 find a trend for demographic expansion (negative but not significantly different from zero); 19 however, when only samples from Site 7 (peak occupation) are included, we find a significantly 20 negative value, indicative of demographic expansion. 21