A large international team of researchers has found that Neolithic hunter-gatherers living in several parts of Europe interbred with farmers from the Near East. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the team describes comparing DNA from several early groups in Europe and evidence of interbreeding.
The Neolithic period, often described as the New Stone Age, was a period of human history from approximately 15,000 BCE to 3,000 BCE. It was a time defined by the development of settlements and the refinement of tools and the arts. Prior research has shown that people living in what is now Germany, Hungary and Spain were mostly hunter-gatherers during the early Neolithic period, but were "replaced" by farmers moving in from the Near East (Anatolia). In this new effort, the researchers suggest that interbreeding between the two groups led to the decline of the hunter-gatherers. The end result is that most modern Europeans are descended from the Near East immigrant farmers, but have remnants of hunter-gatherer DNA.
To learn more about the early history of humans in Europe, the researchers obtained and analyzed 180 DNA samples of people from early Hungary, Germany and Spain dating from between 6,000 and 2,200 BCE.
Ironic that Europeans resist admitting Turkey to the EU when they're descended from people from Asia Minor.
Mark Lipson et al. Parallel palaeogenomic transects reveal complex genetic history of early European farmers, Nature (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nature24476
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Saturday November 11 2017, @10:25AM (4 children)
Well that's not even true either.
Roughly 14% are immigrants, and the same number are first generation (children of immigrants.)
Still quite a bit higher than most people would guess, I suppose, but hardly 99%.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by r1348 on Saturday November 11 2017, @11:56AM (3 children)
Apart from a tiny minority of native Americans left, most modern Americans are of European and African descent, with Asian descent rising in the most recent years.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jimshatt on Saturday November 11 2017, @12:19PM (1 child)
(Score: 4, Informative) by r1348 on Saturday November 11 2017, @12:37PM
True that, current Native Americans are descendants of the 3rd or 4th immigration wave to the American continent, I was referring more to immigration waves in historical times.
I guess that if anything that reinforce how bonkers theories of racial and cultural purity are.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday November 11 2017, @05:46PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?