DNA study suggests farmers migrated from the Middle East to Europe, bringing agriculture
A scientific researcher extracts the RNA from embryonic stem cells in a laboratory, at the Univestiry of Sao Paulo’s human genome research center, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on March 4, 2008.
A DNA study published in the journal Science answers one of the most vexing questions anthropologists have grappled with over the years. By which means did agriculture spread from the Middle East to Europe?
Also known as the "Fertile Crescent," the Middle East was the birthplace of agriculture. Scientists believe it first saw large-scale farming 11,000 years ago. But Europe is a compartive newcomer; anthropologists think agriculture arrived there just 5,000 years ago, according to Agence France Presse.
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It wasn't just knowledge that spread from the Mideast, wrote Science Codex. "Based on their genetic data, Skoglund and the researchers say that Europe's first farmers eventually mixed their genes with the hunter-gatherers who lived there—a relationship that set the stage for today's modern European genome."
"I'm imagining suave dark-eyed farmers seeking out Nordic maidens tired of all that berry picking and hide scraping." NPR stated.
The researchers compared the DNA of a farmer from southern Sweden with a hunter-gatherer from an island off Sweden. The bodies were even buried differently: the farmers made tomb sites out of stones, whereas the gatherers simply laid their dead to rest in the dirt.
Even though the two ancient Swedes lived just 250 miles away from each other, AFP wrote, their DNA was very different. The farmer's DNA was closer to Mediterranean DNA, and the hunter-gatherer's DNA was more like Finns and Europeans from even further north.
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The conclusion? Farmers from Europe's south migrated northward over thousands of years, bringing their skills with them. Eventually, they mixed with the native population, leading to the modern Swedish genome.
"If farming had spread solely as a cultural process, we would not expect to see a farmer in the north with such genetic affinity to southern populations," researcher Pontus Skoglund said.
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