AI interpretationAI-generated
356 ancient genomes reveal how Ice Age hunter-gatherer ancestry shifted across Europe.
This study analysed 356 ancient hunter-gatherer genomes, including 116 new individuals from 14 countries, spanning 35,000 to 5,000 years ago. It shows that a western European Gravettian-associated ancestry was distinct from central and southern European groups, survived the Last Glacial Maximum in Solutrean and Magdalenian populations, and was later largely replaced by an Epigravettian-related ancestry spreading from southern Europe after about 14,000 years ago.
- Western European Gravettian individuals carried an ancestry profile distinct from contemporaneous central and southern European Gravettian groups, but similar to earlier Aurignacian-associated people.
- This western ancestry persisted through the Last Glacial Maximum in Solutrean and later Magdalenian populations, which expanded northeastward after the Ice Age.
- Around the Last Glacial Maximum, southern Europe saw a local genetic turnover linked to north-to-south dispersal of Epigravettian-associated groups, whose ancestry later spread across Europe from at least 14,000 years ago.
Sample interpretation
The site dataset includes 112 samples, with 76 resolved Y-chromosome lineages. The most common Y haplogroups are I-M423 (7), Q-F746 (5), and several R1, R, and I lineages. Mitochondrial DNA is dominated by U5b1b (5), U5 (5), U5b1a (4), U5a2 (4), U4a1 (4), and H (4). Cultural labels include Magdalenian (5), Mesolithic (5), Eneolithic (5), Gravettian (3), and single samples for Solutrean, Aurignacian, and others.
For genealogy enthusiasts
For ancestry enthusiasts, this confirms that European hunter-gatherer ancestry was not static: Ice Age populations moved, mixed, and were replaced. Y and mtDNA patterns, especially U5 and I lineages, reflect deep regional roots and later dispersals that shaped modern European genetic diversity.
Abstract
Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years1,2. Our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is however limited, owing to the scarceness and poor molecular preservation of human remains from that period3. Here we analyse 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. We identify a genetic ancestry profile in individuals associated with Upper Palaeolithic Gravettian assemblages from western Europe that is distinct from contemporaneous groups related to this archaeological culture in central and southern Europe4, but resembles that of preceding individuals associated with the Aurignacian culture. This ancestry profile survived during the Last Glacial Maximum (25,000 to 19,000 years ago) 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, we reveal 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, we find genetic interactions between western and eastern European hunter-gatherers, who were also characterized by marked differences in phenotypically relevant variants.