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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @05:13PM (5 children)
Point me in the direction of a reliable DNA testing outfit that allows 'Escrow' samples to be submitted. Whilst I have a slight interest in the genealogical aspects of it, I'm both not giving them any clues based on family name and nationality and I've no intention of passing my DNA over in a directly personally identifiable manner to parties who may then subsequently pass any results on to shitheads like insurance companies..my genetic foibles are none of their fscking business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @06:50PM (1 child)
There was a science article a few months ago that said ancient Egyptians and North Africans had more Asian DNA than African DNA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @07:18PM
Egyptians are more closely related to Middle Easter folks than to black Africans.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Saturday November 11 2017, @09:02PM (2 children)
A few percent of people who do these tests give fake names. I know someone who used a fake name, using a gifted testing kit from a friend, and with a throwaway email address through Tor. The company had no DIRECT way of determining who the individual was.
However, her relatives gave her away. Enough relatives were on the service and curious, that the relatives were able to correctly guess who the individual was.
A cautionary tale! :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @09:16PM (1 child)
Good think I have not had a DNA test! My relatives will never be able to figure out who I am! Other than the fact that, um, they are related to me.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Saturday November 11 2017, @09:22PM
The point was not that the relatives figured it out; it was that if they could, then the company could.