Ancient DNA analyses of two Early Chalcolithic Individuals from the West Mound

In this chapter, we investigate the genetics of two Early Chalcolithic Çatalhöyük individuals, U.18333 and U.16835, the only two burials yet recovered from the West Mound. These were two neonates buried within the same building. Using shotgun-sequenced partial genomes (0.06x and 0.02x coverage) we identify both as females. Despite being recovered from the same building, we find no close genetic kinship between them, in line with previously published kinship results from Çatalhöyük. We also find that the two West Mound neonates shared the same gene pool with Neolithic Çatalhöyük and other Central and West Anatolian Neolithic populations, and they did not carry the Caucasus-related “eastern” gene flow signature observed in later-coming Chalcolithic Anatolian genomes. This indicates no large-scale admixture between East and West Mound Çatalhöyük, and possibly that the post-Neolithic “eastern” gene flow event into Anatolia may have initiated only by the mid-6th millennium BCE.