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We can read the history of ancient Europe in the works of Herodotus or Tacitus. But what of the people who lived in Europe tens of thousands of years before? Their bones were largely indistinguishable; the only clues to their different histories were the fine tools and artwork they left behind in their caves.
Now it seems they left a written record after all: in their DNA. In an unprecedented feat, researchers were able to piece together shards of DNA from ancient bones to read the genomes of 51 individuals whose lives spanned a 38,000 year period. The team of 64 researchers from institutes in China, Europe, the US and Canada, led by David Reich at Harvard Medical School and Svante Paabo from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, reported their work in May in the journal Nature. The DNA of ice age Europeans reveals a tumultuous history. In this saga, climate change orchestrates much of the action. “DNA is revolutionising our understanding of the prehistory of Europe,” commented anthropologist Darren Curnoe from the University of New South Wales.
Modern humans first arrived in Europe from Africa via the Middle East 45,000 years ago and encountered Neanderthals. Known as the Aurignacians, these first modern Europeans created Venus figurines like those found in the Hohle Fels cave in Germany and the evocative charcoal paintings in the Chauvet cave in France.
In the new study two Aurignacians, both about 37,000 years old, had their DNA read. “Goyet 116” was a Belgian; “Kostenki”, a Russian. Their DNA bore the marks of trysts with Neanderthals, its composition of Neanderthal DNA was 6%, three times that of today’s Europeans. Apart from that, their DNA signatures were quite distinctive. It turns out Kostenki’s line went on to dominate Europe as part of the Gravettian culture, famed for the small pointed blades they used for hunting mammoth and other large game. But 33,000 years ago, Goyet’s line vanished off the face of Europe. “They were driven away from east to west,” says Cosimo Posth, one of the authors of the paper at the University of Tübingen.
Was it bloody battle or did Goyet’s descendants just move to greener pastures? “Something in between,” suspects Posth. But the Gravettian heirs to Europe did not get to keep their prize. From 25,000–19,000 years ago, Europe froze over in the Last Glacial Maximum and everybody left.
Once Europe thawed, guess who came back? The descendants of Goyet 116. It turns out they had sought refuge from the glaciers in northern Spain, as evidenced from the DNA signatures found in the so-called “El Miron” cluster dated to 19,000 years ago. From there they spread widely across Europe.
And then 14,000 years ago, suddenly and unexpectedly, right across Europe, human DNA starts showing the signatures of people from the Near East – Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece. That signature includes the gene ( HERC2) that conferred blue eyes along with an otherwise swarthy complexion. It coincided with the first balmy period after thousands of years of icy weather, and probably reflects the opening of new trade corridors, suggests Posth.
Prior to this study, ancient Europe’s history was like trying to summarise a movie with still images, says Reich. Now “we can follow the narrative arc; what we see is multiple episodes of population replacement and immigration on a vast and dramatic scale, at a time when the climate was changing dramatically”.
“DNA IS REVOLUTIONISING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PREHISTORY OF EUROPE.”