Subscribe or renew today Every print subscription comes with full digital access SUBSCRIBE / RENEW NOW

MAGAZINE CENTURY OF SCIENCE MENU ABOUT FOR STUDENTS DONATE

ALL TOPICS LIFE HUMANS EARTH SPACE PHYSICS CORONAVIRUS

INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM SINCE 1921

NEWS ARCHAEOLOGY

Ancient DNA unveils disparate

fates of Ice Age hunter-
gatherers in Europe
A new study is the largest to date of ancient Europeans’ DNA

Privacy

This artistic portrayal of a southeastern European hunter-gatherer from the Gravettian culture, which dates to between 33,000 and 26,000 years ago, was inspired
by newly analyzed genetic evidence and previous archaeological finds.
TOM BJOERKLUND

By Bruce Bower
MARCH 1, 2023 AT 11:00 AM

Ice sheets expanded across much of northern Europe from around 25,000 to
19,000 years ago, making a huge expanse of land unlivable. That harsh event set
in motion a previously unrecognized tale of two human populations that played
out at opposite ends of the continent.

Western European hunter-gatherers outlasted the icy blast in the past. Easterners
got replaced by migrations of newcomers.

That’s the implication of the largest study to date of ancient Europeans’ DNA,
Report an ad
covering a period before, during and after what’s known as the Last Glacial
Maximum, paleogeneticist Cosimo Posth and colleagues report March 1 in
Nature.

Science News headlines, in your inbox

Headlines and summaries of the latest Science News articles, delivered to
your email inbox every Thursday.

Your e-mail address SIGN UP

As researchers have long thought, southwestern Europe provided refuge from

the last Ice Age’s big chill for hunter-gatherers based in and near that region, the
Related Stories
scientists say. But it turns out that southeastern Europe, where Italy is now
located, did not offer lasting respite from the cold for nearby groups, as
previously assumed.

Instead, those people were replaced by genetically distinct hunter-gatherers who

HUMANS
presumably had lived just to the east along the Balkan Peninsula. Those people, DNA tracks ancient
who carried ancestry from parts of southwestern Asia, began trekking into what’s Mediterranean farmers to
Scandinavia
now northern Italy by about 17,000 years ago, as the Ice Age began to wane. By Bruce Bower • April 26, 2012

“If local [Ice Age] populations in Italy did not survive and were replaced by groups
from the Balkans, this completely changes our interpretation of the
archaeological record,” says Posth, of the University of Tübingen in Germany.
GENETICS

Posth and colleagues’ conclusions rest on analyses of DNA from 356 ancient Africa’s oldest human DNA helps
unveil an ancient population
hunter-gatherers, including new molecular evidence for 116 individuals from 14 shift
By Bruce Bower • February 23, 2022
countries in Europe and Asia. Excavated human remains that yielded DNA dated
to between about 45,000 and 5,000 years ago (SN: 4/7/21).

Comparisons of sets of gene variants inherited by these hunter-gatherers from

common ancestors enabled the researchers to reconstruct population
movements and replacements that shaped ancient Europeans’ genetic makeup.
Prying tales from ancient DNA
For the first time, ancient DNA evidence included individuals from what’s known and a far-away moon
By Eva Emerson • May 2, 2014
as the Gravettian culture, which dates from about 33,000 to 26,000 years ago in
central and southern Europe, and from southwestern Europe’s Solutrean culture,
which dates to between about 24,000 and 19,000 years ago.

Contrary to expectations, makers of Gravettian tools

came from two genetically distinct groups that
populated western and eastern Europe for roughly
10,000 years before the Ice Age reached its peak,
Posth says. Researchers have traditionally regarded
Gravettian implements as products of a biologically
uniform population that occupied much of Europe.

“What we previously thought was one genetic

ancestry in Europe turned out to be two,” says
paleogeneticist Mateja Hajdinjak of the Max Planck
Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
Germany, who did not participate in the new study.
And “it seems that western and southwestern Europe
served as a [refuge from glaciation] more than
southeastern Europe and Italy.”
A new study examining the genetic history of Ice Age
Europeans included DNA extracted from roughly 11,000-
to 8,000-year-old fossils of hunter-gatherers that were Descendants of the western Gravettian population,
previously found on the Dutch coast.
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ANTIQUITIES (RMO), MODIFIED BY who are associated with Solutrean artifacts and
MICHELLE O’REILLY
remnants of another ancient culture in western
Europe that ran from about 19,000 to 14,000 years ago, outlasted the Ice Age
before spreading northeastward across Europe, the researchers say.

Further support for southwestern Europe as an Ice Age refuge comes from DNA
extracted from a pair of fossil teeth that belonged to an individual linked to the
Solutrean culture in southern Spain. That roughly 23,000-year-old adult was
genetically similar to western European hunter-gatherers who lived before and
after the Last Glacial Maximum, Max Planck paleogeneticist Vanessa Villalba-
Mouco and colleagues, including Posth, report March 1 in Nature Ecology &
Evolution.

Meanwhile, the genetic evidence suggests that hunter-gatherers in what’s now

Italy were replaced by people from farther east, probably based in the Balkan
region. Those newcomers must have brought with them a distinctive brand of
stone artifacts, previously excavated at Italian sites and elsewhere in eastern
Europe, known as Epigravettian tools, Posth says. Many archaeologists have
suspected that Epigravettian items were products of hunter-gatherers who
clustered in Italy during the Ice Age’s peak freeze.

But, Hajdinjak says, analyses of DNA from fossils of Ice Age Balkan people are
needed to clarify what groups moved through Italy, and when those migrations
occurred.

Ultimately, descendants of Ice Age migrants into Italy reached southern Italy and
then western Europe by around 14,000 years ago, Posth and colleagues say.
Ancient DNA evidence indicates that, during those travels, they left a major
genetic mark on hunter-gatherers across Europe.

Questions or comments on this article? E-mail us

at feedback@sciencenews.org | Reprints FAQ

CITATIONS
C. Posth et al. Paleogenomics of Upper Paleolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers. Nature. Published March 1,
2023. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05726-0.

V. Villalba-Mouco et al. A 23,000-year-old southern Iberian individual links human groups that lived in western Europe
before and after the Last Glacial Maximum. Nature Ecology & Evolution. Published March 1, 2023. doi: 10.1038/s41559-
023-01987-0.

About Bruce Bower

Bruce Bower has written about the behavioral sciences for Science News since 1984.
He writes about psychology, anthropology, archaeology and mental health issues.

This article was supported by

readers like you.
Our mission is to provide accurate, engaging news of science to the
public. That mission has never been more important than it is today.

As a nonprofit news organization, we cannot do it without you.

Your support enables us to keep our content free and accessible to

the next generation of scientists and engineers. Invest in quality
science journalism by donating today.

DONATE NOW

More Stories from Science News on Archaeology

ARCHAEOLOGY ARCHAEOLOGY PARTICLE PHYSICS ARCHAEOLOGY

Some monkeys accidentally make The Yamnaya may have been the Muons unveiled new details about Homo sapiens may have brought
stone flakes that resemble ancient world’s earliest known horseback a void in Egypt’s Great Pyramid archery to Europe about 54,000
hominid tools riders By Emily Conover • March 2, 2023 years ago
By Bruce Bower • March 10, 2023 By McKenzie Prillaman • March 3, 2023 By Bruce Bower • February 22, 2023

PAID CONTENT
From the Nature Index

SUBSCRIBER SERVICES MORE INFORMATION SOCIET Y FOR SCIENCE

Science News was founded in 1921 as an independent, nonprofit source Subscribe FAQ About the Society
of accurate information on the latest news of science, medicine and Renew Newsletters Donate
technology. Today, our mission remains the same: to empower people to Give a Gift Subscription Rights & Permissions Careers
evaluate the news and the world around them. It is published by the
Customer Service Advertise
Society for Science, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership organization
dedicated to public engagement in scientific research and education (EIN Contact
53-0196483).

Science News Explores Science News Learning

© Society for Science & the Public 2000–2023. All rights reserved.
1719 N Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 | 202.785.2255 | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy