Ancient Plasmodium genomes shed light on the history of human malaria.

Malaria-causing protozoa of the genus Plasmodium have exerted one of the strongest selective pressures on the human genome, and resistance alleles provide biomolecular footprints that outline the historical reach of these species1. Nevertheless, debate persists over when and how malaria parasites emerged as human pathogens and spread around the globe1,2. To address these questions, we generated high-coverage ancient mitochondrial and nuclear genome-wide data from P. falciparum, P. vivax and P. malariae from 16 countries spanning around 5,500 years of human history. We identified P. vivax and P. falciparum across geographically disparate regions of Eurasia from as early as the fourth and first millennia BCE, respectively; for P. vivax, this evidence pre-dates textual references by several millennia3. Genomic analysis supports distinct disease histories for P. falciparum and P. vivax in the Americas: similarities between now-eliminated European and peri-contact South American strains indicate that European colonizers were the source of American P. vivax, whereas the trans-Atlantic slave trade probably introduced P. falciparum into the Americas. Our data underscore the role of cross-cultural contacts in the dissemination of malaria, laying the biomolecular foundation for future palaeo-epidemiological research into the impact of Plasmodium parasites on human history. Finally, our unexpected discovery of P. falciparum in the high-altitude Himalayas provides a rare case study in which individual mobility can be inferred from infection status, adding to our knowledge of cross-cultural connectivity in the region nearly three millennia ago.

The origin and legacy of the Etruscans through a 2000-year archeogenomic time transect.

The origin, development, and legacy of the enigmatic Etruscan civilization from the central region of the Italian peninsula known as Etruria have been debated for centuries. Here we report a genomic time transect of 82 individuals spanning almost two millennia (800 BCE to 1000 CE) across Etruria and southern Italy. During the Iron Age, we detect a component of Indo-European­associated steppe ancestry and the lack of recent Anatolian-related admixture among the putative non­Indo-European­speaking Etruscans. Despite comprising diverse individuals of central European, northern African, and Near Eastern ancestry, the local gene pool is largely maintained across the first millennium BCE. This drastically changes during the Roman Imperial period where we report an abrupt population-wide shift to ~50% admixture with eastern Mediterranean ancestry. Last, we identify northern European components appearing in central Italy during the Early Middle Ages, which thus formed the genetic landscape of present-day Italian populations.