Genetic data rewrite the prehistory of Europe

A look at DNA taken from the remains of ancient hunter-gatherers found in Sweden suggests that modern Europeans' origins may be more complex than once thought.

Fredrik Hallgren

By Ashley Yeager

September 18, 2014 at 1:45 pm

The genomes of a roughly 7,000-year-old farmer from Germany, eight approximately 8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden and 2,345 living humans have changed the story of modern Europeans’ origins. The analyses show that modern Europeans derive from three, not two, ancestral populations: west European hunter-gatherers, ancient north Eurasians and early European farmers. The results were published September 18 in Nature.

SN first reported the results in the May 17, 2014 feature “Written in bone.“