Europe's first farmers came from Turkey: DNA from Anatolian skeletons show farming spread from the region 8,000 years ago
- Scientists have extracted DNA from skeletons found in Anatolia, Turkey
- They found there are matches with some of the earliest European farmers
- It suggests the agricultural revolution spread into Europe from Anatolia
It was an innovation that changed the course of human history forever, leading to the rise of the first civilisations and transforming the way of life of our ancestors.
Now researchers believe they have pinpointed where the first farmers who spread into Europe 8,000 years ago came from - Anatolia in Turkey.
Using ancient DNA from human remains found in the region, a study has been able to trace the lineage of early European farmers back to the Anatolian plateau in Turkey.
Ancient DNA from human remains (pictured) found in Anatolia, Turkey, has revealed that the farmers who lived there 8,000 years ago were among the first to spread into Europe. The farming revolution brought about changes in human culture that led to some of the first civilisations in history emerging
They said farmers from Anatolia appear to have moved into Europe around 8,000 years ago, replacing the hunter-gatherer cultures that lived there.
Farming is first thought to have emerged in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean in what is now Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
However, the new findings suggest Anatolia acted as a hub from which the farming revolution then spread.
EUROPE'S FOURTH STRAND OF HUNTER-GATHERER ANCESTRY
Geneticists recently discovered a previously unknown 'fourth strand' of ancient hunter-gatherers, a group whose DNA is now found today in almost every living European.
The new lineage is thought to have split from other groups of Homo sapiens who colonised Europe around 45,000 years ago, by travelling north into the Caucasus.
Most modern populations in Europe are mixtures of different ancestral strands.
By retrieving DNA from ancient fossils, it allows scientists to unpick the genetic melting pot that formed these modern populations.
First, a group that migrated out of Africa are thought to have travelled through Turkey and into Europe around 45,000 years ago.
A second group who had settled in the Levant developed agriculture and then migrated into Europe around 6,000 to 7,000 years ago.
The newly identified group who settled in the Caucasus and were isolated from all other groups around 25,000 years ago.
They then interbred with other human groups from further east to lead to the Yamnaya culture, who then migrated into Europe around 5,000 years ago.
Anders Götherstörm, head of archaeogenetic research at the archaeological research laboratory at Stockholm University, said: 'Our results stress the importance Anatolia has had on Europe's prehistory.
'But to fully understand how the agricultural development proceeded we need to dive deeper down into material from the Levant.'
The researchers extracted DNA from human remains found at the site of an ancient settlement in Kumtepe in Troas, northwestern Anatolia, in Turkey.
The remains are thought to belong to Neolithic farmers who were among the first inhabitants of the settlement, which eventually gave rise to the city of Troy.
The team behind the study compared the DNA with genetic material from other ancient farmers in Europe along with DNA from modern Europeans.
Ayca Omrak, who was the first author of the research at Stockholm University, said: 'I have never worked with a more complicated material.
'I could use the DNA from the Kumptepe material to trace the European farmers back to Anatolia.
'It is also fun to have worked with this material from the Kumtepe site, as this is the precursor to Troy.'
A separate study recently found that a rise in farming and metal work in Ireland led to a 'genetic shift' in the region, fuelled by an influx of people from the Black Sea and the Middle East.
This led to the traits that make Celtic people so distinct to emerge around 4,000 years ago.
In particular, the researchers said that the adoption of agriculture led to 'waves of immigration' in Ireland which ultimately shifted their genetics.
The study was led by Queens University Belfast and Trinity College Dublin.
Farming is first thought to have emerged in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean in what is now Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. However, the new findings suggest Anatolia acted as a hub from which the revolution spread. The researchers extracted DNA from remains found at Kumtepe in Troas, Turkey
Neolithic farmers spread to replace hunter gatherer populations in Europe. Wall paintings of hunters (pictured) found in Catal Hoyuk in Anatolia, Turkey are thought to have been made in 6,000BC, just as farming was beginning to spread in to Europe. The new study suggests the area was a hub for the farming revolution
Researchers analysed the DNA of an early Neolithic farmer, a woman who is believed to have lived in the Belfast area 5,200 years ago.
They also analysed the DNA of three men found in Rathlin Island in County Down, who lived 4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age.
While the early farmer woman more closely resembled people form Southern Europe, with black hair and brown eyes, the later men had blue eyes.
One even had an inherited iron disorder, haemochromatosis, commonly found in Irish people.
Elsewhere, the woman's genome was a 'genetic cocktail' of early hunter gatherer DNA mixed with that of Near East farmers.
It is thought these farmers migrated to the region thousands of years ago, bringing farming to the region in around 3,750 BC.
However, the genetic traits found in the Bronze Age males were found to be much closer to modern Irish people.
WHO DO EUROPEANS OWE THEIR LIGHT SKIN, HEIGHT AND BLUE EYES TO?
Researchers recently discovered that the genes which determine increased height in many Europeans appeared in northern Europe around 5,000 years ago.
Southern Europeans, however, appear to have inherited their shorter stature from two separate populations.
First the stone age hunter gatherers who lived in Iberia before the arrival of farming and later Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, tribes who moved into the area around 5,000 years ago.
Men from Holland are among the tallest in the world, averaging 6ft 3 inches (1.9 metres) closely followed by the Danish, British and the Swedish.
France and Italy, however, have some of the shortest men in Europe.
They found a series of genetic changes that helped to create modern Europeans, such as the ability to digest lactose in adulthood, appeared around 4,000 years ago.
Few populations outside Europe have the enzymes needed to digest lactose and it appears to have appeared with the European Bell Beaker people around 2450-2140BC.
Genes responsible for lighter skin in northern populations were also far less prevalent in prehistoric Europeans.
However, it appears the early farmers from Anatolia who migrated into Europe in the Neolithic period also carried some genes for lighter skin colour with them.
Blue eyes, by contrast, appear to be something that was selected by the early European hunter gatherers – all of the samples tested from this period had the genes responsible for light eye colour in modern European populations.
Intriguingly two genetic variants that have been linked to a higher risk of coeliac disease also appear to have appeared at the same time as agriculture began to appear.
The researchers hypothesise that this may have been to protect against other deficiencies in the diet caused by eating single crops often favoured in agriculture.
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