Europe's First Farmers

Here is another post I wrote a few months ago for some friends:

Europe's First Farmers:  New genetic clues are developing a major historical mystery in Europe:

In geography there is the concept of diffusion or how things (ideas, peoples, diseases, fashions) spread across space to new lands.  In general, there are two ways new ideas -like say agriculture- would have spread from agriculture's birthplace in the Near East to Europe.  The 1) idea and technology of farming could have spread to Europe from one people to another or 2) farmers could have moved to Europe with their technology and families.  So did the idea of farming or the actual farmers move?

Some background:  Prior genetic and archaeological evidence points to the settlement of Europe by Neanderthals and then Homo sapiens.  The first Homo sapien populations were hunter-gatherers who were pushed back to refuges on the Iberian, Italian and Balkan peninsulas during the last Ice Age.  Homo sapiens arrived in Europe (Greece specifically) around 36,000 years ago.  About 9,500 BCE the first farming began in the Levant (Israel/Lebanon/Syria/Turkey) and spread to the Fertile Crescent and Turkey.  By about 7,000 BCE farming appears in Greece and spreads up the Danube Valley into Europe.

Adding to some earlier studies, a paper out last year in 2012 analyzed the DNA of 3 Neolithic hunter-gathers and 1 Neolithic farmer whose bodies were discovered in Sweden.  The genetic evidence suggests the farmer's DNA was much different than the hunter-gatherers' DNA.  The farmer's DNA in fact resembled that of ancient bodies found among Near Eastern immigrant farmers in Southern Europe.  Even Özti, the Austrian Ice Man, more closely resembles modern Sardinians genetically than modern Austrians.

So, it appears that the Neolithic farmers moved and took their farming technology with them into Europe.  These farmers, however, do not appear to have been as successful in passing on their genes though.  Today's Swedes more closely resemble the hunter-gatherers genetically than the early farmers.

Moreover, another recent paper looks at various Neolithic and Mesolithic ancient skeletons for their DNA.  It finds the earliest European farmers were immigrants from the Near East who settled and thrived from about 7000 to 2500 BCE.  Then there was a major population change with the DNA of these earlier settlers being replaced by new settlers who appear to have been from the Beaker-Bell population that spread along trade routes out of Portugal and Spain.  This group appears to have spread Celtic languages and to have been the main megalithic builders of sites such as Carnac and Stonehenge.  The genetic studies find their DNA relatively quickly becomes the dominant genomes in Europe; they largely replaced the former farmers.

Another study in Science argues the migration of the Corded Ware people from the Ukraine brought Proto-Indo-European into Europe.  If so, their influence must have quickly converted the original language of the Beaker-Bell ancestors to Celtic languages -a branch of Indo-European.  Or, the Bell-Beaker people are themselves an Indo-European offshoot.

So, the first wave of Homo sapien hunter-gatherers were largely crowded out by farmers from the Near East.  This second wave of farmers were then replaced by a culture of traders from Spain/Portugal with later additions from eastern Europe.  It is this third wave that defines the genetics of most modern Europeans and not the hunter-gatherers or the first farmers.