Early Scandinavian farmers massacred hunter-gatherer population, DNA analysis shows

After the first farmers arrived in Scandinavia 5,900 years ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few generations, according to a new study from Lund University in Sweden, among others. The results, contrary to mainstream opinion, are based on DNA analysis of skeletons and teeth found in what is now Denmark.

The comprehensive study was published as four separate articles in the journal Nature. An international research team, of which Lund University in Sweden is a member, was able to draw new conclusions about the effects of migration on ancient populations by extracting DNA from parts of the skeleton and teeth of prehistoric people.

The study shows, among other things, that there have been two almost total population shifts in Denmark over the past 7,300 years. The first population shift occurred 5,900 years ago when a population of farmers, of different origins and appearance, drove out the gatherers, hunters and fishermen who had previously populated Scandinavia. Within a few generations, almost the entire hunter-gatherer population was wiped out.

“This transition was previously presented as peaceful. However, our study indicates the opposite. In addition to violent deaths, it is likely that new pathogens from livestock killed off many foragers,” explains geology researcher Anne Birgitte Nielsen and responsible for Radiocarbon. Dating Lab at Lund University.

A thousand years later, about 4,850 years ago, another population shift occurred when people with genetic roots to Yamnaya – a herding people from southern Russia – arrived in Scandinavia and wiped out the previous agricultural population. Once again, this could have involved both violence and new pathogens. These strong-boned people led a semi-nomadic lifestyle on the steppes, taming animals, raising domestic livestock, and moving across vast areas using horses and carts.

The peoples who settled our climates were a mixture of Yamnaya and Neolithic peoples from Eastern Europe. This genetic profile is dominant in today’s Denmark, while the DNA profile of the early peasant population has been mostly erased.

“This time there has also been a rapid population turnover, with virtually no descendants of the predecessors. We don’t have as much DNA material from Sweden, but what there is indicates a similar evolution . In other words, many Swedes are to a large extent also descendants of these semi-nomads,” explains Birgitte Nielsen, who provided quantitative pollen data that shows how vegetation changed in relation to the changes of population.

The findings not only overturn previous theories about romantic and peaceful encounters between groups of people. The study also provides an in-depth understanding of historical migratory flows and interpretation of archaeological finds and changes in vegetation and land use found in paleoecological data.

“Our results contribute to improving our knowledge of our heredity and our understanding of the evolution of certain diseases. Which could be beneficial in the long term, for example in medical research,” concludes Birgitte Nielsen.