Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years. However, our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is limited, owing to the scarceness and poor preservation of human remains from that period. In new research, scientists from the University of Tübingen, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and elsewhere analyzed 356 ancient hunter-gatherer genomes, including new genomic data for 116 individuals from 14 countries in western and central Eurasia, spanning between 35,000 and 5,000 years ago. They identified a genetic ancestry profile in individuals associated with the Gravettian culture from western Europe that is distinct from contemporaneous groups related to this culture in central and southern Europe, but resembles that of preceding individuals associated with the Aurignacian culture. This ancestry profile survived during the Last Glacial Maximum — the coldest phase of the latest Ice Age — in human populations from southwestern Europe associated with the Solutrean culture, and with the following Magdalenian culture that re-expanded northeastward after the Last Glacial Maximum. Conversely, they revealed a genetic turnover in southern Europe suggesting a local replacement of human groups around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, accompanied by a north-to-south dispersal of populations associated with the Epigravettian culture. From at least 14,000 years ago, an ancestry related to this culture spread from the south across the rest of Europe, largely replacing the Magdalenian-associated gene pool. After a period of limited admixture that spanned the beginning of the Mesolithic, the authors found genetic interactions between western and eastern European hunter-gatherers, who were also characterized by marked differences in genetic variants.
“The data we gained from this study provides us with astonishingly detailed insights into the developments and encounters of West Eurasian…
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