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We can learn everything from eye and hair color, to lactose tolerance. Similar to home testing kits, these genome tests reveal clues about the identities of ancient ancestors, and their migrations around the world.
Europe was in the midst of the Ice Age, with mile-thick sheets of ice covering much of the continent. These first modern humans stayed in ice-free southern Europe, where they adapted to the cold.
Around 14,500 years ago, Europe began to warm. As conditions began to change, people followed the retreating glaciers, heading northwards.
Three major movements of people seem to have shaped the course of European prehistory, with settlers bringing art, farming, domesticated horses, and the wheel with them. They also introduced the Indo-European languages spoken across much of the continent today.
Today's Europeans, regardless of the country/region they live in, are a mix of several ancient bloodlines. Their first ancestors arrived on the continent from Africa, the Middle East, and Russia.
In the caves where they found shelter from the harsh conditions outside, they left spectacular paintings and engravings of their prey, such as this one in the Cave of Altamira, in Northern Spain.
These settlers would have eaten large mammals such as mammoths, reindeer, horses, and aurochs (the ancestors of modern cattle).
Based on genetic evidence, many Corded Ware people were descendants of the Yamnaya. The Yamnaya also shared distant kinship with Native Americans, whose ancestors hailed from Siberia.
This meant the Anatolians had migrated, bringing their lifestyle (as well as their genes) with them. The Anatolian genetic signature is found wherever farming first appears in Europe.
Geneticists also found Yersinia pestis, the plague microbe, in the DNA of some Yamnaya samples. The Yamnaya would have been accustomed to the disease, developing immunity, while bringing it to an unprepared population when they migrated. This could explain why Yamnaya expansion across the continent occurred so rapidly.
This genome analysis provides the amount of information that's given by home DNA sequencing tests.
The Yamnaya were the first people in the world to ride horses and master the wheel, and they were even building wagons. But they didn't build many permanent settlements.
About 45,000 years ago, the first wave of settlers migrated from Africa, arriving to Europe through the Middle East. DNA suggests they had dark skin and light eyes.
The Yamnaya arrival in Europe also coincides with a time that's been pinpointed as the initial spread of Indo-European languages. All are thought to originate from a single language, but it's unclear whether it was brought by the Yamnaya or Neolithic farmers.
The Neanderthals, whose ancestors migrated from Africa to Europe thousands of years before, had already adapted to the harsh cold conditions. DNA indicates the first wave of African settlers (Homo sapiens) mixed with the Neanderthals, who disappeared within 5,000 years.
The last of the first three waves of settlers arrived from the Russian steppe around 5,000 years ago, at the same time Stonehenge was being built.
These arrivals lived as hunters and gatherers. They were nomadic, traveling in small groups. They made settlements next to the banks of rivers, in particular along the Danube from the Black Sea towards Eastern and Central Europe.
In 2014, researchers found the petrous bone—a tiny part of the inner ear, not much bigger than a pinkie tip—preserves information long after other testable DNA has left the body. Sample remains taken from the Konya Plain showed the DNA was a match for farmers who lived and died hundreds of miles northwest.
Around 5,000 years ago, on what are now the steppes of southern Russia and eastern Ukraine, a group of nomads called the Yamnaya began to migrate towards Europe.
When researchers began examining the DNA of the Corded Ware people, they expected it to be similar to that of the Neolithic farmers. Instead, they contained distinctive genes, new to Europe at the time.
Centuries later, around 5,400 years ago, a brand new culture popped up. It was called Corded Ware for its distinctive pottery, decorated by pressing string into wet clay.
Corded Ware people turned out to be closely related to Native Americans, rather than Neolithic European people. This added to their mystery.
These settlers had light skin and dark eyes, the opposite of many of the characteristics of the earlier wave of hunter-gatherers. The groups didn't tend to mix, and intermarriage was rare.
The Konya Plain is a fertile expanse of land in modern-day Turkey. People have practiced farming here since farming first existed.
For years, it was thought that Europeans acquired farming methods from the Levant, but it was unclear how. DNA evidence is helping to show that migration had a lot to do with it.
Their descendants migrated further west and south over the centuries, colonizing Sardinia and Sicily, and settling in modern-day Portugal.
The Yamnaya brought domesticated horses, a mobile lifestyle with wagons, new tools, and craft pottery to Europe, perhaps helping to nudge it towards the Bronze Age.
Today, the genetic impact of these groups in European DNA would look different according to regional variations. Overall, the genetic legacy would be roughly equal parts Yamnaya and Anatolian farmer, with a much smaller amount of African hunter-gatherer.
Sources: (National Geographic) (The New York Times) (Smithsonian Magazine)
Our ability to learn more about our ancient ancestors has never been better. Thanks to advances in technology, scientists working with archaeologists can date remains with greater accuracy than ever before. "Paleogenetics" makes it possible to study the sequence of an entire genome of people who lived tens of millennia ago. As a result, an explosion of new information has become available, which promises to transform our understanding of the past, as new discoveries are literally unearthed.
For instance, did you know that Europeans are the descendants of three distinct migrations of people from elsewhere in the word: Africa, the Middle East (Turkey), and the Steppes (southern Russia/eastern Ukraine)?
Intrigued? Click on to learn more about the origins of Europe's first settlers.
What DNA tells us about Europe's first settlers
Modern technology gives clues about the origins of our ancestors
LIFESTYLE Archaeology
Our ability to learn more about our ancient ancestors has never been better. Thanks to advances in technology, scientists working with archaeologists can date remains with greater accuracy than ever before. "Paleogenetics" makes it possible to study the sequence of an entire genome of people who lived tens of millennia ago. As a result, an explosion of new information has become available, which promises to transform our understanding of the past, as new discoveries are literally unearthed.
For instance, did you know that Europeans are the descendants of three distinct migrations of people from elsewhere in the word: Africa, the Middle East (Turkey), and the Steppes (southern Russia/eastern Ukraine)?
Intrigued? Click on to learn more about the origins of Europe's first settlers.