1,500 ancient European genomes reveal previously hidden waves of migration, study finds

Table of Contents

Scientists have discovered three key waves of immigration in early Europe, using a new way to study human DNA. This research shows Scandinavia was an important hub for people moving northward and spreading out elsewhere over the course of the first thousand years.

Research team members described a new way to study ancient DNA. They used a method called "time-stratified ancestry analysis," along with a statistical tool named Twigstats, to analyze more than 1,500 DNA profiles that had already been published. This approach helped uncover patterns of migration and ancestry that other methods had not been able to identify.

(post-800).

The technique can not only pinpoint unknown ancestry in entire groups of people, but also in individual people, the team observed.

It was proposed that he had about the same ancestry as modern Dutch people and Anglo-Saxons. The new method confirmed this idea by showing that approximately one-quarter of his ancestry was related to Scandinavians.

The researchers stated in the study that individuals with Scandinavian ancestry were already present in Britain before the fifth century CE.

Related: Historians now speculate that Attila the Hun's invasion of Rome was actually motivated by famine, not a desire for bloodshed, according to a new study.

The "Twigstats" technique

The Twigstats technique is unique because it mathematically analyzes genetic mutations that are shared across "twigs" of a family tree. This allows it to pinpoint an ancient person's ancestry more accurately and with greater confidence than was previously achievable.

The aim was a data analysis technique that would offer a clearer focus for high-resolution genetic history.

There is limited historical knowledge about them.

According to a study based on the data collected, researchers believe that the discoveries may indicate that people from Northern Europe migrated to the Roman Empire during the first millennium because of its economic prosperity, while later, movements of people occurred in the opposite direction, from Central Europe to Northern Europe.

The head of our research group at RIKEN, a leading scientific research institute in Japan, commented, "Our new approach can now be applied to other populations around the world, potentially revealing additional missing pieces of the puzzle.