We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost four hundred thousand polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies1–8 and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of western and far eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary, and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000 year old Siberian6. By ~6,000-5,000 years ago, a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry had occurred throughout much of Europe, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~3/4 of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ~3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for the theory of a steppe origin9 of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.

Bell Beaker pottery spread across western and central Europe beginning around 2750 BCE before disappearing between 2200–1800 BCE. The mechanism of its expansion is a topic of long-standing debate, with support for both cultural diffusion and human migration. We present new genome-wide ancient DNA data from 170 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 100 Beaker-associated individuals. In contrast to the Corded Ware Complex, which has previously been identified as arriving in central Europe following migration from the east, we observe limited genetic affinity between Iberian and central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals, and thus exclude migration as a significant mechanism of spread between these two regions. However, human migration did have an important role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, which we document most clearly in Britain using data from 80 newly reported individuals dating to 3900–1200 BCE. British Neolithic farmers were genetically similar to contemporary populations in continental Europe and in particular to Neolithic Iberians, suggesting that a portion of the farmer ancestry in Britain came from the Mediterranean rather than the Danubian route of farming expansion. Beginning with the Beaker period, and continuing through the Bronze Age, all British individuals harboured high proportions of Steppe ancestry and were genetically closely related to Beaker-associated individuals from the Lower Rhine area. We use these observations to show that the spread of the Beaker Complex to Britain was mediated by migration from the continent that replaced >90% of Britain’s Neolithic gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the process that brought Steppe ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier.

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/nature25738.

En el marco del Plan Integral de Actuación en el Valle de Ambrona (extremo suroriental de la provincia de Soria), se viene desarrollando desde hace cinco años un proyecto de investigación sobre la introducción de la agricultura en el interior de la Península Ibérica (Rojo, 1994, 1999; Rojo y Estremera, 2000; Rojo y Kunst, 1999a-c; 2000; Rojo, Negredo y Sanz, 1996; Rojo, Kunst y Palomino, 2002). Dicho proyecto se incluye dentro de las actividades de investigación programadas por el Departamento de Prehistoria de la Universidad de Valladolid en colaboración con el Instituto Arqueológico Alemán de Madrid. Desde un principio consideramos fundamental la realización de prácticas de arqueología experimental no sólo por lo que supone para la difusión de los conocimientos que genera la investigación al resto de la sociedad, sino por lo que aporta a los propios estudios científicos, en tanto que medio de contraste de muchas hipótesis, como se ha demostrado, por ejemplo, en la reconstrucción e incendio de la tumba neolítica de La Peña de La Abuela (Rojo, 1999).Dentro de un proyecto de investigación en curso sobre el origen de la cerveza en Europa, financiado por San Miguel Fábricas de Cerveza y Malta, S.A., y ante los resultados ofrecidos por los análisis realizados por Jordi Juan-Treserras sobre cerámicas campaniformes de La Sima, se planteó la realización de una reconstrucción de todo el proceso de elaboración de la cerveza en el Calcolítico meseteño, desde la siembra del grano hasta el producto final. Todo ello se documentará exhaustivamente en soporte fotográfico y audiovisual, y servirá de motivo para la elaboración de un documental científico sobre el particular.

No abstract