A recent research suggests that Neolithic hunter-gatherers and farmers co-existed peacefully in Central Europe for over 2,000 years.
The latest research results come from a study by the Institute of Anthropology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). Anthropologist Professor Joachim Burger led excavation team and studied bones from the 'Blätterhöhle' cave near Hagen in Germany. The research suggests that the cave has fossils for both hunter-gatherers and farmers.
Dr. Ruth Bollongino, the lead author of the study, writes that many previous studies believe that the Central European hunter-gatherers disappeared after the arrival of farmers. However, the research carried out by Professor Burger and his team shows that the descendants of Mesolithic Europeans maintained their hunter-gatherer way of life and also co-existed peacefully with immigrant farmers for over least 2,000 years.
The hunter-gatherers were the descendants of the first anatomically modern humans to arrive in Europe, around 45,000 years ago. They also survived the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago.
A genetic study carried out by Professor Burger's team hinted that agriculture was brought to Central Europe around 7,500 years ago by immigrant farmers. The study also revealed that as minute trace of hunter-gathering is available in archaeological records, it was assumed that the hunter-gatherers died or took on to farming.
The latest study now claims that the hunter-gatherers and the farmers co-existed peacefully and they buried their dead in the same cave. Excavators found more than 400 skeletal remains in the cave. The study found DNA of some skeletons were of hunter-gatherers and some were of the farmers.
The DNA results also suggest that that the hunter-gatherers sustained on a diet of fish and the farmers relied mainly on domesticated animals. The study also points out that even though the hunter-gatherers and the farmers co-existed side by side and shared the same burial space, and hunter-gatherer women also sometimes married into famer communities.
However, "farmer women regarded marrying into hunter-gatherer groups as social anathema, maybe because of the higher birthrate among the farmers," Burger explains.
