Comparing genetic and archaeological proxies for reconstructing past human demography in West Asia

It is commonly theorized that population census size is a driving force for cultural innovation and change. However, modeling demographic change in ancestral populations has proven to be a challenge due to data and methodology limitations, especially for archaeological and radiocarbon data. Here, we evaluate a new genetic demographic proxy, the estimation of effective population size (Ne), using the length and quantity of Runs of Homozygosity (ROH) of six regions in Western Asia from the early Neolithic to late Antiquity. Then, we compare them with archaeological settlement and radiocarbon data presented by Palmisano and Colleagues (2021), investigating their trend agreement and the historical and climatic events with which they may coincide.