Publications by authors named "Alexey Tishkin"

Article Synopsis
  • - The aurochs (Bos primigenius), now extinct, was a critical species in prehistoric Eurasian and North African ecosystems and is the ancestor of today's cattle, playing a significant role in providing food and labor for humans over thousands of years.
  • - Researchers analyzed 38 ancient genomes, identifying four distinct aurochs populations (European, Southwest Asian, North Asian, and South Asian) that adapted to climate changes and human impacts throughout history.
  • - The genetic study revealed that North Asian and European aurochs populations were separated until they mixed after the last glacial period, with domestication originating from a small group of individuals from Southwest Asia, leading to a hybridization with various aurochs strains.
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  • - Horses transformed human mobility, but the timeline of their domestication and integration as transport is debated, with new genetic data being used to clarify this history.
  • - Analysis of 475 ancient horse genomes indicates that modern domestic horses were shaped by human intervention around 2200 BCE, after a domestication bottleneck began around 2700 BCE, leading to a significant expansion across Eurasia.
  • - Evidence also suggests that there was early horse husbandry in central Asia at Botai around 3500 BCE, prior to the establishment of contemporary horse bloodlines, challenging the notion of large herds being linked to migrations around 3000 BCE.
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The Yamnaya archaeological complex appeared around 3300BCE across the steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas, and by 3000BCE reached its maximal extent from Hungary in the west to Kazakhstan in the east. To localize the ancestral and geographical origins of the Yamnaya among the diverse Eneolithic people that preceded them, we studied ancient DNA data from 428 individuals of which 299 are reported for the first time, demonstrating three previously unknown Eneolithic genetic clines. First, a "Caucasus-Lower Volga" (CLV) Cline suffused with Caucasus hunter-gatherer (CHG) ancestry extended between a Caucasus Neolithic southern end in Neolithic Armenia, and a steppe northern end in Berezhnovka in the Lower Volga.

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This study focuses on expanding knowledge about the genetic diversity of the Altai horse native to Siberia. While studying modern horses from two Altai regions, where horses were subjected to less crossbreeding, we tested the hypothesis, formulated on the basis of morphological data, that the Altai horse is represented by two populations (Eastern and Southern) and that the Mongolian horse has a greater genetic proximity to Eastern Altai horses. Bone samples of ancient horses from different cultures of Altai were investigated to clarify the genetic history of this horse breed.

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The peopling history of North Asia remains largely unexplored due to the limited number of ancient genomes analyzed from this region. Here, we report genome-wide data of ten individuals dated to as early as 7,500 years before present from three regions in North Asia, namely Altai-Sayan, Russian Far East, and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Our analysis reveals a previously undescribed Middle Holocene Siberian gene pool in Neolithic Altai-Sayan hunter-gatherers as a genetic mixture between paleo-Siberian and ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestries.

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Research on the evolution of dog foraging and diet has largely focused on scavenging during their initial domestication and genetic adaptations to starch-rich food environments following the advent of agriculture. The Siberian archaeological record evidences other critical shifts in dog foraging and diet that likely characterize Holocene dogs globally. By the Middle Holocene, body size reconstruction for Siberia dogs indicates that most were far smaller than Pleistocene wolves.

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The brown bear () is an iconic carnivoran species of the Northern Hemisphere. Its population history has been studied extensively using mitochondrial markers, which demonstrated signatures of multiple waves of migration, arguably connected with glaciation periods. Among Eurasian brown bears, Siberian populations remain understudied.

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Article Synopsis
  • The domestication of horses significantly changed mobility and warfare, but modern breeds do not trace back to the earliest domestic horses found in Central Asia around 3500 BC.
  • Research reestablishes the Western Eurasian steppes, particularly the lower Volga-Don area, as the origin of modern domestic horses, based on genetic analysis from 273 ancient horse genomes.
  • The study finds that the spread of modern domestic horses around 2000 BC coincided with the emergence of equestrian cultures, refuting the idea that horseback riding was linked to the expansion of Yamnaya pastoralists in Europe.
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  • DNA hybridization-capture techniques help researchers focus on specific genomic regions, which is particularly beneficial for studying ancient DNA (aDNA) that often contains more environmental DNA than the target material.
  • hyRAD is introduced as a budget-friendly, design-free method that uses double enzymatic restriction to create RNA probes for capturing targeted regions in aDNA, yielding impressive results from samples with low endogenous content.
  • The study highlights the effectiveness of hyRAD, noting that it can enhance data quality and coverage, and has developed an automated protocol to streamline processing, making it a viable option for reconstructing ancestral genetic data.
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The Mongolian horse is one of the most ancient and relatively unmanaged horse breeds. The population history of the Mongolian horse remains poorly understood due to a lack of information on ancient and modern DNA. Here, we report nearly complete mitochondrial genome data obtained from five ancient Mongolian horse samples of the Khereksur and Deer Stone culture (late 2nd to 1st third of the 1st millennium BC) and one ancient horse specimen from the Xiongnu culture (1st century BC to 1st century AD) using target enrichment and high-throughput sequencing methods.

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  • The study focuses on the deep population history of East Asia, utilizing ancient DNA from 166 individuals to explore migration patterns and ancestry connections over millennia.
  • It identifies a significant coastal migration during the Late Pleistocene and notes expansions in the Holocene from regions like Mongolia, the Amur River Basin, and the Yellow River, affecting language distributions and genetic ancestry.
  • The findings suggest complex interactions involving different lineages, including shared ancestry among Mongolic and Tungusic speakers, a major genetic contribution to the Han Chinese from Yellow River farmers, and a mix of northern and southern ancestries in Taiwan.
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Over the past two decades, proteomic analysis has greatly developed in application to the field of biomolecular archaeology, coinciding with advancements in LC-MS/MS instrumentation sensitivity and improvements in sample preparation methods. Recently, human dental calculus has received much attention for its well-preserved proteomes locked in mineralized dental plaque which stores information on human diets and the oral microbiome otherwise invisible to other biomolecular approaches. Maximizing proteome recovery in ancient dental calculus, available only in minute quantities and irreplaceable after destructive analysis, is of paramount importance.

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We present genome-wide data from 40 individuals dating to c.16,900 to 550 years ago in northeast Asia. We describe hitherto unknown gene flow and admixture events in the region, revealing a complex population history.

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Goats were initially managed in the Near East approximately 10,000 years ago and spread across Eurasia as economically productive and environmentally resilient herd animals. While the geographic origins of domesticated goats (Capra hircus) in the Near East have been long-established in the zooarchaeological record and, more recently, further revealed in ancient genomes, the precise pathways by which goats spread across Asia during the early Bronze Age (ca. 3000 to 2500 cal BC) and later remain unclear.

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By sequencing 523 ancient humans, we show that the primary source of ancestry in modern South Asians is a prehistoric genetic gradient between people related to early hunter-gatherers of Iran and Southeast Asia. After the Indus Valley Civilization's decline, its people mixed with individuals in the southeast to form one of the two main ancestral populations of South Asia, whose direct descendants live in southern India. Simultaneously, they mixed with descendants of Steppe pastoralists who, starting around 4000 years ago, spread via Central Asia to form the other main ancestral population.

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Objectives: This work focuses on the populations of South Siberia during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age and specifically on the contribution of uniparental lineage and phenotypical data to the question of the genetic affinities and discontinuities between western and eastern populations.

Materials And Methods: We performed molecular analyses on the remains of 28 ancient humans (10 Afanasievo (3600-2500 BC) and 18 Okunevo (2500-1800 BC) individuals). For each sample, two uniparentally inherited systems (mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA) were studied, in order to trace back maternal and paternal lineages.

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Archaeogenomic studies have largely elucidated human population history in West Eurasia during the Stone Age. However, despite being a broad geographical region of significant cultural and linguistic diversity, little is known about the population history in North Asia. We present complete mitochondrial genome sequences together with stable isotope data for 41 serially sampled ancient individuals from North Asia, dated between c.

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A study on the chemical stability of anodic alumina membranes and their performance in long-term water and organic solvent permeation experiments is reported. Anodic alumina possesses high stability for both protonic and aprotonic organic solvents. However, serious degradation of the membrane occurs in pure water, leading to a drastic decrease of permeance (over 20% of the initial value after the passing of 0.

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