by A previously unknown lineage of Europeans survived the coldest parts of the last ice age, only to disappear when Europe experienced a heatwave around 15,000 years ago.
The discovery comes from the largest study to date of the genetic make-up of European Ice Age hunter-gatherers.
Glaciers have covered much of Europe for the past 100,000 years. About 45,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers began to enter Europe from Africa via the Middle East and fought during the Last Ice Age Maximum (about 25,000 to 19,000 years ago), the coldest part of the last ice age.
Archaeologists know the first modern humans in Europe from the artifacts they left behind. However, few human fossils survive from these early cultures, so little is known about how these ancient people migrated and were related to each other.
To shed light on this ancient time, scientists have now assembled the largest known database of prehistoric European hunter-gatherer genomes. They analyzed the genomes of 356 ancient hunter-gatherers who lived between 35,000 and 5,000 years ago in what are now 34 countries in Eurasia. This included new data from 116 people.
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Researchers unexpectedly discovered that the Gravettian culture, which spread across Europe some 33,000 to 26,000 years ago, was composed of two genetically distinct groups, despite using similar weapons and producing similar art. That came as a surprise, lead author of the study Cosimo Posth (opens in new tab)a paleogeneticist at the University of Tübingen in Germany, told Live Science.
A previously unknown Gravettian lineage – named Fournol after a French site that is the earliest known site associated with this genetic cluster – inhabited what is now France and Spain. Another – named Věstonice after a Czech place – stretched across what is now the Czech Republic and Italy.
The Fournol are descended from the Aurignacians, the earliest known hunter-gatherer culture in Europe, dating back approximately 43,000 to 33,000 years. In contrast, the Věstonice descended from the Kostenki and Sunghir groups further east of present-day western Russia, who were contemporaries of the Aurignacians.
There are some cultural differences between these two lines. For example, Fournol people buried their dead in caves and sometimes ritualistically cut the bones after death, Posth said. In contrast, the Věstonice buried their dead with grave goods, personal jewelry and the red mineral ocher outdoors or in caves.
People of the Fournol and Věstonice lineages may have had darker skin and eye color than some of the lineages that came after them, the new genome study suggests. However, Posth warned that “it is not possible to know their exact skin and eye color as these traits could be influenced by several other genes”.
Fournol’s genetic signature survived the last glacial maximum and lasted at least 20,000 years. Their descendants sought refuge in present-day Spain and southern France during the Last Glacial Maximum, and later spread northeast to the rest of Europe.
In contrast, Věstonice died out. Previously, scientists thought the Italian peninsula was a refuge for Gravettians during the last glacial maximum, with people there eventually forming what is known as the Epigravettian culture after the glaciers retreated. However, the new findings show that Věstonice was genetically undetectable after the Last Glacial Maximum.
Instead, the new study finds that the Epigravettians actually descended from Balkan groups that arrived in Italy as early as 17,000 years ago.
“Immediately after the last glacial maximum, the genetic makeup of human groups living on the Italian peninsula changed dramatically,” Ludovic Orlandoa molecular archaeologist at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science.
Beginning about 14,000 years ago, the Epigravettians spread from the south across the rest of Europe, displacing the Magdalenians, who were partly descended from the Fournol. The Magdalenians hunted reindeer that lived in the steppe, while the Epigravetii specialized in hunting forest prey. An abrupt warming event helped forests spread across Europe into the former steppe, and the Epigravettians also moved north, Posth said.
All in all, this new research “substantially expands our knowledge of ancient human genome variation in Europe’s deep past,” said Orlando, who wrote a perspective (opens in new tab) about the new study. “It reveals important changes in the genetic makeup of some regions after major climate changes.”
The scientists presented their results in detail in the journal on Wednesday (March 1). Nature (opens in new tab).
