Genomic insights into social life in Neolithic Anatolia.

Ancient populations present in Anatolia, modern Türkiye, during the Neolithic period (~8000 to 6000 BCE) were defined by the emergence of early farming technologies and settlements constructed of mudbrick houses. Previous research has shown that these Anatolian farming communities expanded westward around 6500 BCE, colonizing much of the European continent (1). The assumption was that the Neolithic communities in Anatolia were male dominated and replaced more "primitive" forager populations as they moved west. On pages 1386 and 1385 of this issue, Yüncü et al. (2) and Koptekin et al. (3), respectively, describe paleogenomic evidence from ancient populations that challenges these assumptions and provides intimate new details of social life in the Neolithic period. Both studies reflect the advances of paleogenomics in addressing socially nuanced questions and dispute traditional narratives of human history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]