How Modern Europe was Created: Ancient DNA Reveals Massive Migration

How did the Bronze Age change Europe? Scientists have taken a closer look at Europe's genetic past and establish how the foundation for modern Eurasia was laid.

Modern Eurasians are, genetically speaking, no more than a couple thousand years old. Yet how cultural upheavals occurred in the Bronze Age has long remained a mystery.

"Both archaeologists and linguists have had theories about how cultures and languages have spread in our part of the world," said Morten Allentoft, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We geneticists have now collaborated with them to publish an explanation based on a record amount of DNA-analysis of skeletons from the Bronze Age."

In this latest study, the researchers wanted to understand the big economical and social changes that occurred at the beginning of the third millennium BC, spanning the Urals to Scandinavia. Neolithic farming cultures were replaced by a completely new percent of family, property and personhood.

About 5,000 years ago, the Yamnaya Culture migrated westward from the steppes in the Caucasus to western Siberia. Yamnaya was characterized by a new system of family and property. In northern Europe, these people mingled with Stone Age people who inhabited the region and along the way established the Corded Ware Culture, which resembles present day Europeans living north of the Aps today.

About 4,000 years ago, the Sintashta Culture evolved in the Caucasus. This culture's new weapons and chariots rapidly expanded across Europe. The area east of the Urals and far into Central Asia was colonized about 3,800 years ago by the Andronovo Culture. In fact the researchers found that this particular culture has a European DNA background.

What's interesting is that during the last part of the Bronze Age, there was a replacement of genes. In fact, the European genes in the area of Central Asia disappeared.

"Our study is the first real large-scale populations genomic study ever undertaken on ancient individuals," said Eske Willerslev, geneticist, in a news release. "We analyzed genome sequence data from 101 past individuals. This is more than a doubling of the number of genomic sequenced individuals of pre-historic man generated to date. The study is without any comparison to anything previously made. The results show that the genetic composition and distribution of peoples in Europe and Asia today is a surprisingly late phenomenon-only a few thousand years old."

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

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