Genetic evidence for different male and female roles during cultural transitions in the British Isles

Abstract

Human history is punctuated by periods of rapid cultural change. Although archeologists have developed a range of models to describe cultural transitions, in most real examples we do not know whether the processes involved the movement of people or the movement of culture only. With a series of relatively well defined cultural transitions, the British Isles present an ideal opportunity to assess the demographic context of cultural change. Important transitions after the first Paleolithic settlements include the Neolithic, the development of Iron Age cultures, and various historical invasions from continental Europe. Here we show that patterns of Y-chromosome variation indicate that the Neolithic and Iron Age transitions in the British Isles occurred without large-scale male movements. The more recent invasions from Scandinavia, on the other hand, appear to have left a significant paternal genetic legacy. In contrast, patterns of mtDNA and X-chromosome variation indicate that one or more of these pre-Anglo-Saxon cultural revolutions had a major effect on the maternal genetic heritage of the British Isles.

Figure 1

Charts of Y chromosome hg and haplotype cluster frequencies in each population. Haplotype clusters 1.15+, 2.47+, and 3.65+ are within hgs 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

Figure 2

Plots of the first and second PC of Y chromosome hg (Top), mtDNA hg (Middle), and X microsatellite (Bottom) allele frequency distributions. All Y hgs were included while the following common European mtDNA hgs were included: H, V, J, T, I, W, X, U3, U4, U5, and K. In the Y-chromosome data, the proportion of the variation explained by PC1 is 65% and that explained by PC2 is 28%, whereas in the mtDNA and X microsatellite data, these figures are 54% and 15%, and 46% and 33%, respectively.