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The genetic history of prehistoric and protohistoric Korean populations is not well understood because only a small number of ancient genomes are available. Here, we report the first paleogenomic data from the Korean Three Kingdoms period, a crucial point in the cultural and historic formation of Korea. These data comprise eight shotgun-sequenced genomes from ancient Korea (0.7×-6.1× coverage). They were derived from two archeological sites in Gimhae: the Yuha-ri shell mound and the Daesung-dong tumuli, the latter being the most important funerary complex of the Gaya confederacy. All individuals are from between the 4th and 5th century CE and are best modeled as an admixture between a northern China Bronze Age genetic source and a source of Jomon-related ancestry that shares similarities with the present-day genomes from Japan. The observed substructure and proportion of Jomon-related ancestry suggest the presence of two genetic groups within the population and diversity among the Gaya population. We could not correlate the genomic differences between these two groups with either social status or sex. All the ancient individuals' genomic profiles, including phenotypically relevant SNPs associated with hair and eye color, facial morphology, and myopia, imply strong genetic and phenotypic continuity with modern Koreans for the last 1,700 years.

Contemporary Transeurasian-speaking populations reside in a wide geographic area encompassing the Eurasian steppe, Northeast China and the Russian Far East, as well as Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago. From population genetic studies of contemporary Transeurasian-speakers, it is well known that they are genetically heterogeneous, probably due to historical mixing with non-Transeurasian populations during their migration. Here, we provide an up-to-date overview of the genetic relationship among Transeurasian populations. Specifically, we focus on highlighting i) studies of contemporary populations explicitly taking into account the above stated recent admixture, and ii) paleogenomic studies of ancient genomes to directly recover prehistoric gene pools predating recent admixture events. These studies show an underlying shared genetic substratum among the Transeurasian populations, which is best represented by ancient populations from Northeast China and the Russian Far East, as well as present-day Tungusic-speaking populations.

Since the Bronze Age, pastoralism has been a dominant subsistence mode on the Western steppe, but the origins of this tradition on the Eastern steppe are poorly understood. Here we investigate a putative early pastoralist population in northern Mongolia and find that dairy production was established on the Eastern steppe by 1300 BCE. Milk proteins preserved in dental calculus indicate an early focus on Western domesticated ruminants rather than local species, but genetic ancestry analysis indicates minimal admixture with Western steppe herders, suggesting that dairy pastoralism was introduced through adoption by local hunter-gatherers rather than population replacement.Recent paleogenomic studies have shown that migrations of Western steppe herders (WSH) beginning in the Eneolithic (ca. 3300–}2700 BCE) profoundly transformed the genes and cultures of Europe and central Asia. Compared with Europe, however, the eastern extent of this WSH expansion is not well defined. Here we present genomic and proteomic data from 22 directly dated Late Bronze Age burials putatively associated with early pastoralism in northern Mongolia (ca. 1380{–975 BCE). Genome-wide analysis reveals that they are largely descended from a population represented by Early Bronze Age hunter-gatherers in the Baikal region, with only a limited contribution (˜7%) of WSH ancestry. At the same time, however, mass spectrometry analysis of dental calculus provides direct protein evidence of bovine, sheep, and goat milk consumption in seven of nine individuals. No individuals showed molecular evidence of lactase persistence, and only one individual exhibited evidence of gt;10% WSH ancestry, despite the presence of WSH populations in the nearby Altai-Sayan region for more than a millennium. Unlike the spread of Neolithic farming in Europe and the expansion of Bronze Age pastoralism on the Western steppe, our results indicate that ruminant dairy pastoralism was adopted on the Eastern steppe by local hunter-gatherers through a process of cultural transmission and minimal genetic exchange with outside groups.