BERLIN (AP) — New research reveals that the hunter-gatherer people who dominated Europe 30,000 years ago sought refuge from the last ice age in warmer places, but those who did appear to be in what is now Spain and Portugal Only they survived.
Using new genetic analysis of prehistoric human remains, scientists have been able to trace the fate of the gravitic culture, a term used to describe the people who once roamed Europe and produced distinctive tools and art such as voluptuous flower figurines found at ancient sites across the continent.
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, highlights the impact of climate change and migration on the early inhabitants of Europe. The study notes that those who lived in what is now Italy when the ice expanded south about 25,000 years ago found themselves at a dead end compared to their cousins who lived in the region that now covers parts of southern France, Spain and Portugal.
Those who went west survived the worst of the Ice Age, known to scientists as the last ice cap, said Cosimo Post, a researcher at the University of Tübingen who led the study.
“To our great surprise, the population that existed before the last ice cap in Italy has completely disappeared,” Posth said. “They didn’t succeed.”
Genetic analysis of the individuals arriving from Italy after the last Ice Age showed that the dark-skinned, dark-eyed Gravettian populations were replaced by newcomers from the Balkans, who brought blue eyes and a touch of Near Eastern ancestry with them.
The researchers analyzed 116 new genetic samples which they added to the 240 already known ancient samples, covering a period from 45,000 to 5,000 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Gravettians who had survived Ice Age Spain mixed with migrants from the east as Europe warmed again about 15,000 years ago, and then quickly pushed the continent back from Iberia into Poland and the British Isles, dominating it for thousands of years.
The genetic imprint of the Gravettians can be found in the last Spanish hunter-gatherer groups until the arrival of the first farmers, who migrated to Europe. from Anatolia about 8,000 years ago, Post said.
In an accompanying commentary published by Nature, Ludovic Orlando of the Center for Anthropology and Genomics in Toulouse, France, said the study showed how climate change affected populations in Europe and that ancient human cultures were not always ethnically homogeneous.
Orlando, who was not involved in the study, said the findings also show how resilient Europe’s genetic history is. “No modern people can claim a single ancestry from the human groups first established on the continent,” he said.
Posth hopes to dig deeper into the history of ancient migration in Europe, particularly the mysterious people who arrived from the Balkans around the time of the last ice cap.
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