A recent study uncovers a profound historical connection between shifting climates and their impact on human populations during the Neolithic and Bronze Age epochs.
The Oxus Civilisation (or Bactrio-Margian Archaeological Complex BMAC) was the main archaeological culture of the Bronze Age in Southern Central Asia. Paleogenetic analyses were previously conducted mainly on samples from the eastern part of BMAC. The population associated with BMAC descends from local Chalcolithic populations, with some outliers of steppe or South-Asian descent. Here, we present new genome-wide data for one individual from Ulug-depe (Turkmenistan), one of the main BMAC sites, located at the southwestern edge of the BMAC. We demonstrate that this individual genetically belongs to the BMAC cluster. Using this genome, we confirm that modern Indo-Iranian speaking populations from Central Asia derive their ancestry from BMAC populations, with gene flow from the western steppe and the Altai steppe being higher among Tajiks than among Yagnobis.