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Early life experience is associated with long-term effects on behavior and epigenetic programming of the NR3C1 (GLUCOCORTICOID RECEPTOR) gene in the hippocampus of both rats and humans. However, it is unlikely that such effects completely capture the evolutionarily conserved epigenetic mechanisms of early adaptation to environment. Here we present DNA methylation profiles spanning 6.5 million base pairs centered at the NR3C1 gene in the hippocampus of humans who experienced abuse as children and nonabused controls. We compare these profiles to corresponding DNA methylation profiles in rats that received differential levels of maternal care. The profiles of both species reveal hundreds of DNA methylation differences associated with early life experience distributed across the entire region in nonrandom patterns. For instance, methylation differences tend to cluster by genomic location …