Ancient DNA Reveals Migration History of Central Europeans

DNA preserved in the bones of ancestors provides a window to our genetic history that can solve many mysteries, including the story of where the people of Modern Day Europe migrated.

According to National Geographic, some ancestors were hunter-gatherers, while others were discovering agriculture. Other than that, not much is known about these people. However, with the new Genographic Project, an ancient DNA study from Central Europe states that we know much more about these people from their DNA.

Archaeologists from Germany have sequenced and analyzed DNA from 364 people that lived in Central Europe from 5,500 and 1,500 BC. The DNA extracted from the teeth and bones were then analyzed, where the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that is inherited maternally was then analyzed. We all carry nearly identical mtDNA to a female ancestor living 500 years ago to even 5,000 years ago. Sometimes an occasional mutation shows up, but other than that, it is completely the same.

Central European history was very busy around the Bronze Age, where lineages from 7,000 years ago are much different than 5,000 years ago and 3,500 years ago. Project director Spencer Wells, who was also National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence stated,  "Spanning a period from the dawn of farming during the Neolithic period through to the Bronze Age, the [genetic] data from the archaeological remains reveals successive waves of migration and population replacement- genetic 'revolutions' that combined to create the genetic patterns we see today.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, specimen samples from concentrated areas of Germany showed when changes within mtDNA occurred, and when farming started to replace hunter-gatherers. When these were compared with other finds around Central Europe as well as other archaeological finds, researchers can suggest the genetic history was affected by migration from cultures not only in the Near East, but from the west  and other Eastern European countries as well.

"With this genetic timeline, we can confirm that the first genetic change occurred between hunter-gatherers and farmers, and it's surprisingly stable for about two thousand years, when farming is completely established," Dr. Wolfgang Haak of ACAD explains. "Then, towards the end of the Neolithic, we gain a bit of momentum and see a bunch of early hunter-gatherer lineages coming back. And then again, shortly after that, we see new impulses, coming both from the East and the West. There are suddenly these additionally elements that make-up most of the modern-day diversity. By the time that we reach the early Bronze Age, we have mostly everything in place that we see today."