Recent Study On Ancient DNA Reveals New Information About Baltic Hunter-Gatherers

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The findings of a recent study indicate that Baltic hunter-gatherers were not swamped by migrations of early agriculturalists from the Middle East, like the rest of central and Western Europe. Rather, the findings of the new study suggest that they probably acquired knowledge of farming and ceramics by sharing cultures and ideas with outside communities rather than genes.

The researchers extracted ancient DNA from numerous archaeological remains between 5,000 and 8,000 years old found in Latvia and the Ukraine. These samples spanned the Neolithic period - the dawn of agriculture in Europe, when people of that time moved from a hunting-gathering lifestyle to a more settled way of life-based on food production.

Previous studies have found that a huge number of early farmers from the Levant, due to their success on technological innovations including crops and pottery, expanded to the peripheral parts of Europe by the end of the Neolithic and largely replaced the hunter-gatherer populations, according to Eurekalert.

The current study conducted by researchers from the University of Cambridge, Trinity College Dublin, and the University College Dublin found that the Levantine farmers did not engage in hunting-gathering in the Baltic as was the case in the Central and Western Europe. Instead, the study authors report that the Baltic hunter-gatherers learned the skills through communication and cultural exchange with outsiders.

The findings build on the debates on the "Neolithic package," - technologies including cultivated cereals, domesticated livestock, and ceramics, which revolutionized the existence of humans across Europe during the Stone Age.

Latest Advances in ancient DNA work have shown that they spread necessary information through Central and Western Europe by interbreeding and migration. However, the instant study suggests migration was not a universal agent for the way of life across Europe. Archaeology shows that the technologies of the package develop in the Baltic region, albeit less rapidly even though the analyses show that the genetics of these populations remained the same as those of the hunter-gatherers throughout the Neolithic.

Almost all the ancient DNA studies up till this moment has suggested that technologies like agriculture spread through people migrating and changing settlements, senior author from the University of Cambridge, Andrea Manica said. He added that they found a very different picture in the Baltic as there are no genetic traces of the farmers from Anatolia and Levant, who spread agriculture across Europe

The findings of the study indicate that the indigenous hunter-gatherers adopted Neolithic ways of life via contact and trade, instead of being settled by external communities. It also suggests that migrations are not the only model for technology acquisition in European prehistory, according to Science Daily.

Although the sequenced genomes showed no trace of the Levant farmer influence, a Latvian sample revealed genetic influence from a distinct external source, one described by the researchers as a migration from the Pontic Steppe in the east. The timing, which was placed at 5-7,000 years ago fits with previous research estimating the earliest Slavic languages. They published their findings in the journal Current Biology.