Palaeopopulation genetics of the Neolithic transition
Since he appeared about 200,000 years ago, anatomically modern man has lived not only as a hunter, but also from gathering fruit, grass, wild vegetables and roots. About 11,000 years ago, a change in lifestyle took place in the territories of present-day Iran, the Levant region and south-east Anatolia, which is characterised especially by four factors: the people founded permanent settlements with buildings for various functions, plants such as Einkorn and beans were cultivated, goats, sheep, pigs and cattle were domesticated – and a new kind of culture was created, that became obvious especially with the appearance of ground stone tools and later also from pottery products and the use of copper. The transition from the partly nomadic hunter-gatherer culture to a settled lifestyle based on farming is also known as the “Neolithic Revolution”. For 2,000 years, the Neolithic culture remained in its region of origin. After this, meaning about 9,000 years ago, it spread to western Anatolia and to the Aegean (see figure). Here at the latest, it splits into two trajectories, i.e. into the Mediterranean and into the Danube-Balkan route.
Figure 1: The spread of farming across Europe (from Burger et al. 2011).
The Mediterranean colonisations took place by ship. Their paths led across southern Italy, the Tyrrhenian islands, the south ofFrance and north Africa as well as across the Iberian peninsula. It is highly likely that a version of the Mediterranean Neolithic about 7,000 years ago reached the Rhine and met the second route of the Balkan Neolithic. About 8,500 years ago, this second route stretched spasmodically from south-east Europe across central and northern Europe. Subsequently, the origins of the Central European Linearbandkeramik culture can be determined as going back 7,600 years. It has its beginnings in the north-west of Hungary /south-west of Slovakia respectively, and spread relatively quickly into central Europe. Only much later, approximately 6,100 years ago, were the low plains of northern Germany and other parts of northern Europe “neolithisised”.
While the process of neolithisation is characterised by an apparent clear transition from Mesolithic hunter-gatherer societies to Neolithic famers in southern and central Europe, the transition in northern Europe and in the Baltics are somewhat more complex, as not all archaeological findings can be clearly assigned to one culture or another.
The events described above make the spatial and temporal distribution of the Neolithic culture clear. Nevertheless, for a long time it was disputed how and to what extent people migrated into new areas. The analysis of ancient DNA from skeletons of prehistoric man and animals from the appropriate period offer the possibility of making a direct study of the demographic events of the past.
Molecular genetic examinations of the mitochondrial DNA of late Pleistocene and early Holocene hunter-gatherers have resulted in the fact that they have completely different haplotypes than LBK farmers. Populationgenetic computer simulations based on coalescent theory have shown that theearly Neolithic farmers is no way could have been the descendents of the later hunter-gatherers (Bramanti et al. 2009). As the hunter-gatherers had without a doubt already been settled in Europe for a long time, Neolithic famers had to migrate into this area.
Up to now, no molecular data has been available that could clearly identify the region of origin of the Linearbandkeramik people. Nevertheless, it is plausible that one can look for the origin of the Linearbandkeramiker where its culture was created according to archaeological studies, namely in the region on the present-day Lake Balaton. However, it is possible that this migration represents only one link in a lengthy chain of migrations from the south-eastern part of central Europe; an origin of the early European Neolithics in Anatolia at least no longer seems to be completely improbable.
Apparently, cultural contact existed between hunter-gatherers and farmers. Whether the exchange of hunting tools also led th the exchange of men is still not clear, as Y-chromosomal DNA has not yet been studied. Certainly, a complex interaction model is to be applied to the people of the early Neolithic. Analyses of the appropriate neutral and phenotypically informative markers using next generation sequencing technologies will provide more information on this in the near future.
Johannes Gutenberg University
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Barbara Bramanti,