Geneticists analyzed DNA samples from the Bronze Age and discovered new insights regarding migration patterns in ancient Europe during that time. The researchers particularly discovered that cultural, linguistic and physiological changes were linked to the people's movement from one region to another.
Archaeologists and linguists have different theories regarding the evolution of European languages but with the involvement of geneticists, who are experts from a completely different field, additional points were taken into consideration, providing more understanding in the origin of the languages.
"Both archaeologists and linguists have had theories about how cultures and languages have spread in our part of the world," says Morten Allentoft, first author and assistant professor from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen. "We geneticists have now collaborated with them to publish an explanation based on a record amount of DNA-analyses of skeletons from the Bronze Age." The Bronze Age was around 3000-1000 B.C.
The archaeologists led by Kristian Kristiansen, professor at the University of Gothenburg, states that the driving force of his group is to comprehend the significant changes during the early part of the third millennium B.C., in terms of social and economic practices. They observed that the perception of the people at that time changed from an old Neolithic farming civilization to a family-oriented, ownership-based and individualistic culture. Kristiansen and his colleagues believe that these are the products of extensive migrations.
Previous physiological theories were also determined by the researchers, particularly the rise in lactose tolerance. "Previously the common belief was that lactose tolerance developed in the Balkans or in the Middle East in connection with the introduction of farming during the Stone Age," says Martin Sikora, co-author and associate professor from the Centre for GeoGenetics. "But now we can see that even late in the Bronze Age the mutation that gives rise to the tolerance is rare in Europe. We think that it may have been introduced into Europe with the Yamnaya herders from Caukasus but that the selection that has made most Europeans lactose tolerant has happened at a much later time."
The two studies published in the journal Nature are the first studies to involve an actual evolutionary population that has reached this significant level of extent, says Eske Willerslev, geneticist and director of the Centre for GeoGenetics.
Photo: Erik Drost | Flickr
