Revealing the Complex Migration Patterns in Stone Age Europe

A recent DNA study has provided a more nuanced picture of how different groups coexisted during the European Stone Age, as well as how some of them were isolated. Investigators from Uppsala University collaborated with an international team of researchers to generate new genetic data from 56 Stone Age individuals from Central and Eastern Europe. The Communications Biology journal has published the findings.

Conducting studies like this one requires a broad interdisciplinary discussion. In this study, this discussion has been exceptionally fruitful.”

Tiina Mattila, Study Lead Author and Population Geneticist, Uppsala University

Earlier DNA research has assembled a picture of European Stone Age history over the last 15 years. Before agriculture spread to Europe, there were various groups of hunter-gatherers in different parts of Eurasia who intermingled. The intermingling of these hunter-gatherer genetic lines was closely linked to geography, according to this study.

Numerous previous DNA studies of Europe’s prehistory have also revealed that the spread of agriculture was strongly associated with Anatolian gene flow. That group was genetically and culturally distinct from European hunter-gatherers. However, agriculture spread in different ways in different geographical areas, resulting in different ethnic groups mingling in different parts of Europe.

These differences in the intermingling of genetic lines and cultures can tell us about the power relations between different groups.

Tiina Mattila, Study Lead Author and Population Geneticist, Uppsala University

Close relatives were also examined in the new study.

Common graves are often assumed to be family graves, but in our study, this was not always the case. This shows that even during the Stone Age other social factors also played a role in burial practices.

Helena Malmström, Archaeogeneticist, Uppsala University

In recent years, a more complete picture of Stone Age European genetic history has emerged. And this new study adds more pieces to the puzzle.

“We can show that some parts of Europe—such as the area around the Dnipro River delta—were inhabited by isolated groups of hunter-gatherers for many thousands of years, even though many other parts of Europe changed their way of life when new groups arrived who produced food by tilling the soil,” concludes Mattias Jakobsson, Professor of Genetics at Uppsala University.