When Modern Eurasia Was Born
This image shows a typical group of Danish Bronze Age barrows from ca. 3,500-3,100 BP. Normally they were 3-5 meters high, constructed with cut out grass turfs (sods). One barrow would demand 3 hectares of grazing land. In Denmark 50,000 such barrows were constructed during the period 3,500- 3,100 BP for the leading chiefly lineages.
Credit: Kristian Kristiansen
- Both archaeologists and linguists have had theories about how cultures and languages have spread in our part of the world. We geneticists have now collaborated with them to publish an explanation based on a record amount of DNA-analyses of skeletons from the Bronze Age.
So far the archaeologists have been divided into two different camps. Professor Kristian Kristiansen of the University of Gothenburg, who initiated the project together with Lundbeck Foundation Professor Eske Willerslev says: The driving force in our study was to understand the big economical and social changes that happened at the beginning of the third millennium BC, spanning the Urals to Scandinavia. The old Neolithic farming cultures were replaced by a completely new perception of family, property and personhood. I and other archaeologists share the opinion that these changes came about as a result of massive migrations.
One of the main findings from the study is how these migrations resulted in huge changes to the European gene-pool, in particular conferring a large degree of admixture on the present populations. Genetically speaking, ancient Europeans from the time post these migrations are much more similar to modern Europeans than those prior the Bronze Age.
Mobile warrior people
The re-writing of the genetic map began in the early Bronze Age, about 5,000 years ago. From the steppes in the Caucasus, the Yamnaya Culture migrated principally westward into North- and Central Europe, and to a lesser degree, into western Siberia. Yamnaya was characterized by a new system of family and property. In northern Europe the Yamnaya mixed with the Stone Age people who inhabited this region and along the way established the Corded Ware Culture, which genetically speaking resembles present day Europeans living north of the Alps today.
This image shows a Yamnaya skull from the Samara region colored with red ochre.
Credit: Natalia Shishlina
During the last part of the Bronze Age, and at the beginning of the Iron Age, East Asian peoples arrived in Central Asia. Here it is not genetic admixture we see, but rather a replacement of genes. The European genes in the area disappear.
A new scale
These new results derive from DNA-analyses of skeletons excavated across large areas of Europe and Central Asia, thus enabling these crucial glimpses into the dynamics of the Bronze Age. In addition to the population movement insights, the data also held other surprises. For example, contrary to the research team’s expectations, the data revealed that lactose tolerance rose to high frequency in Europeans, in comparison to prior belief that it evolved earlier in time (5,000 – 7,000 years ago).
Contacts and sources:
Morten Allentoft
University of Copenhagen
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2015/06/when-modern-eurasia-was-born.html
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