2013/10/11 by Ruth Bollongino, Olaf Nehlich, Michael P. Richards +6 · 7 citations
Social Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1245049
openalex publication_date 2013/10/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Debate on the ancestry of Europeans centers on the interplay between Mesolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers. Foragers are generally believed to have disappeared shortly after the arrival of agriculture. To investigate the relation between foragers and farmers, we examined Mesolithic and Neolithic samples from the Blätterhöhle site. Mesolithic mitochondrial DNA sequences were typical of European foragers, whereas the Neolithic sample included additional lineages that are associated with early farmers. However, isotope analyses separate the Neolithic sample into two groups: one with an agriculturalist diet and one with a forager and freshwater fish diet, the latter carrying mitochondrial DNA sequences typical of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. This indicates that the descendants of Mesolithic people maintained a foraging lifestyle in Central Europe for more than 2000 years after the arrival of farming societies.