Hunter-gatherers of the Ice Age are not the ancestors of the first sedentary tillers

03.09.2009

Europe's first farmers replaced their Stone-Age hunter-gatherer forerunners: Analysis of ancient DNA from skeletons suggests that Europe's first farmers were not the descendants of the people who settled the area after the retreat of the ice sheets. Instead, the early farmers probably migrated into major areas of central and eastern Europe about 7,500 years ago, bringing domesticated plants and animals with them, says Barbara Bramanti from Mainz University in Germany and colleagues.