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https://phys.org/news/2024-02-scandinavia-farmers-slaughtered-hunter-population.html

FEBRUARY 12, 2024
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Scandinavia's first farmers slaughtered the hunter-gatherer population,
DNA analysis suggests

by Lund University
Overview of dataset. Credit: Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06862-3

Following the arrival of the first farmers in Scandinavia 5,900 years
ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few
generations, according to a new study from Lund University in Sweden,
among others. The results, which are contrary to prevailing opinion, are
based on DNA analysis of skeletons and teeth found in what is now Denmark.

The extensive study has been published as four separate articles in the
journal Nature. An international research team, of which Lund University
in Sweden is a member, has been able to draw new conclusions about the
effects of migration on ancient populations by extracting DNA from
skeletal parts and teeth of prehistoric people.

The study shows, among other things, that there have been two almost
total population turnovers in Denmark over the past 7,300 years. The
first population change happened 5,900 years ago when a farmer
population, with a different origin and appearance, drove out the
gatherers, hunters and fishers who had previously populated Scandinavia.
Within a few generations, almost the entire hunter-gatherer population
was wiped out.

"This transition has previously been presented as peaceful. However, our
study indicates the opposite. In addition to violent death, it is likely
that new pathogens from livestock finished off many gatherers," says
Anne Birgitte Nielsen, geology researcher and head of the Radiocarbon
Dating Laboratory at Lund University.

A thousand years later, about 4,850 years ago, another population change
took place when people with genetic roots in Yamnaya—a livestock herding
people with origins in southern Russia—came to Scandinavia and wiped out
the previous farmer population. Once again, this could have involved
both violence and new pathogens. These big-boned people pursued a
semi-nomadic life on the steppes, tamed animals, kept domestic cattle
and moved over large areas using horses and carts.

The people who settled in our climes were a mix between Yamnaya and
Eastern European Neolithic people. This genetic profile is dominant in
today's Denmark, whereas the DNA profile of the first farmer population
has been essentially erased.

"This time there was also a rapid population turnover, with virtually no
descendants from the predecessors. We don't have as much DNA material
from Sweden, but what there is points to a similar course of events. In
other words, many Swedes are to a great extent also descendants of these
semi-nomads," says Birgitte Nielsen, who contributed quantitative pollen
data that show how the vegetation changed in connection with the
population changes.

The results do not just overturn previous theories about amorous and
peaceful meetings between groups of people. The study also provides a
deepened understanding of historical migration flows, and the
interpretation of archaeological finds and changes in vegetation and
land use found in paleoecological data.

"Our results help to enhance our knowledge of our heredity and our
understanding of the development of certain diseases. Something that in
the long term could be beneficial, for example in medical research,"
concludes Birgitte Nielsen.

More information: Morten E. Allentoft et al, 100 ancient genomes show
repeated population turnovers in Neolithic Denmark, Nature (2024). DOI:
10.1038/s41586-023-06862-3

Journal information: Nature

Provided by Lund University

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