A key aspect of historic human prosperity was “mingling.” In a groundbreaking discovery, a new gene study sheds light on the fascinating interactions between Copper Age civilizations in Europe, revealing a history of early mingling, shared ideas, and technological exchanges that occurred over a thousand years earlier than previously believed.
The research, published in Nature, analyzed the genetic data of 135 ancient farmers and pastoralists from southeastern Europe, spanning from 5400 BC to 2400 BC, encompassing the late European Neolithic and the entirety of the Copper Age. These findings challenge existing notions of prehistoric human interactions, painting a more intricate picture of how early societies interconnected and contributed to historic human prosperity.
Gene Tracking Ancient European Migrants
Dr. Wolfgang Haak, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and a co-author of the new study, told Gizmodo that his team of researchers “scrutinized genetic data from 135 individuals who lived between 5400 BC and 2400 BC,” representing the late European Neolithic and the entirety of the Copper Age .
In studying the genes of people who lived at the dawn of farming, the team found “genetically mixed signatures were already homogenized in the region around Odessa in the 4th millennium BC.” In case you don’t know, genetic homogenization refers to the underlying molecular processes involved in ‘biotic homogenization,’ or hybridization with…
