This is the question being asked by researchers from Uppsala
and Stockholm Universities. And now with a genomic analysis of eleven Stone Age
human remains from Scandinavia the researchers have concluded that the Stone
Age farmers assimilated local hunter-gatherers who were historically lower in
numbers than the farmers. There has been
much debate as to when the transition between hunting-gathering and farming
began. Now with DNA science being used on human material, scientists have a
whole new way to learn about this sliver of time.
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Despite these advancements, prehistoric population’s transition to an
agricultural lifestyle in Europe remains poorly understood.
“For many of the most interesting questions, DNA-information from
people today just doesn’t cut it, the best way to learn about ancient history
is to analyze direct data—despite the challenges”, says Dr. Pontus
Skoglund of Uppsala University, now at Harvard University, and one of the lead
authors of the study.
“We have generated genomic data from the largest number of
ancient individuals” says Dr. Helena Malmström of Uppsala University and
one of the lead authors. “The eleven Stone-Age human remains were between
5,000 and 7,000 years old and associated with hunter-gatherer or farmer
life-styles”.
The material used in the study is from mainland Scandinavia as well as
from the Baltic island Gotland, and it comprises of hunter-gatherers from
various time periods as well as early farmers.
Of the findings, Professor Mattias Jakobsson, of Uppsala University
comments, “Stone-Age hunter-gatherers had much lower genetic diversity
than farmers. This suggests that Stone-Age foraging groups were in low numbers
compared to farmers”.
Jan Storå at Stockholm University shares Mattias’ fascination.
“The low variation in the hunter gatherers may be related to
oscillating living conditions likely affecting the population sizes of
hunter-gatherers. One of the additional exciting results is the association of
the Mesolithic individual to both the roughly contemporaneous individual from
Spain but also the association to the Neolithic hunter-gatherers.”
The study confirms that Stone-Age hunter-gatherers and farmers were
genetically distinct and that migration spread farming practices across Europe,
but the team was able to go even further by demonstrating that the Neolithic
farmers had substantial admixture from hunter-gatherers. Surprisingly, the
hunter-gatherers from the Baltic Sea displayed no evidence of introgression
from farmers.
Read more at Uppsala University.
Remains of Stone Age woman image via Uppsala University.