Western Hunter-Gatherers - the European Mesolithic

The final in my series exploring the hunter-gatherer cultures of modern humans within Western Eurasia. First I briefly looked at Apidima fossils as evidence that modern traits had been in Europe from an early date. With the Aurignacians, I investigated the earliest known modern human culture in Europe. With the Gravettians, I learned about how hunter-gatherers adapted in the lead up, and into the Last Glacial Maximum How they divided into the Solutrean Culture of Iberia and France in the west; and with the Pavlovian and Epigravettian Cultures of Italy, Czech and the East. With the Magdalenians I discovered how they burst back following Last Glacial Maximum, and through the warmer Bølling–Allerød interstadial.

Above image is my own. Years ago, I recorded several flint microblade waste cores, of which the above wasn't the most regular or impressive. But it's a photo that I could still resource. These artefacts, along with a tranchet axe-head and a few microliths that I recorded, were Mesolithic. I thought that it would be nice if I could bring this series to a close with something, a bit more personal.

Genetics

Let me first sum up the whole Upper Palaeolithic story according to Ancient DNA.

We have established that the Aurignacians had descended from Basal Eurasian (in South West  Asia or further north among descendants?) when they split from ANE (Ancient North Eurasian). An early expansion into Western Europe first occurred circa 43,000 years ago, but a volcanic event in Italy may have terminated this occupation, with it resuming afresh circa 37,000 years ago.  They had since admixed with Neanderthals, and on average had 4-5% Neanderthal DNA with long segments. Neanderthals were likely still present in Western Europe, when the Aurignacians arrived there.

Through all of these Upper Palaeolithic cultures, prey species, conditions, and temperatures varied across the entire Eurasian range, with woodlands sometimes forming in Iberia, as opposed the the great Mammoth Steppe further east. Consequently, cultures and perhaps genomes divided into western and eastern blocks over time.

After 33,000 years ago, the Gravettians arrive from the North East, to replace the Aurignacians. Pushed by worsening climatic conditions, they also divided into west and east. Some descendants or relatives of the Aurignacians must have still been surviving, for Genetic studies suggest that during this period of stress, that the original Gravettians were in turn replaced by people who had more Aurignacian-like DNA. The technology and the artefact culture did not evidence this reversal of population.

Last Glacial Maximum passes, and 17,000 years ago, the Magdalenian Culture arises. The population behind this change were not so much the Solutrean of the west, but the people of the Epigravettian of Italy and the East. And they carry Aurignacian DNA. Very late, the Creswellian Culture develops in Britain, along with the Hamburgian around 12,000 to 10,000 years ago.

That brings me up to date with the Western Hunter-Gatherers and the approach of the Holocene.

WHG as a genetic component

So which of these groups did this component descend from?

Chasing this up brings me back to:


In this study, the authors found that WHG ancestry could be located into the Epigravettian genome. That hunter-gatherers had moved up primarily from the eastern and southern refugia to reach places like Britain.

WHG haplogroups so far identified

yDNA are I2a1 (I-M26) and R1b1a1a (R-M7)
mtDNA are U (mainly U5, U2 and U4)

Were the Earlier Mesolithic people of Britain related to those associated with the Creswellian points? Possibly. Or they could represent a fresh migration most likely not from the recently dominating Magdaenian Culture, but from the descendants of the earlier Epigravettian of SE Europe, possibly with admixture from  fresh populations crossing a dry Aegean from SW Asia:

Wikipedia:

The WHG displayed higher affinity for ancient and modern Middle Eastern populations when compared against earlier Paleolithic Europeans such as Gravettians. The affinity for ancient Middle Eastern populations in Europe increased after the Last Glacial Maximum, correlating with the expansion of WHG (Villabruna or Oberkassel) ancestry. There is also evidence for bi-directional geneflow between WHG and Middle Eastern populations as early as 15,000 years ago.

The WHG of Western Europe is sometimes referred to as the Villabruna or Oberkassel Cluster. They attracted public attention, when analysis of their DNA revealed that they were genetically likely to have had dark hair, and dark skin, with some individuals probably having light coloured, even blue eyes.  Dark skin was likely to have been a feature of earlier, Upper Palaeolithic fore-bearers. Despite low UVR levels, they found other ways of dealing with poor vitamin D production. Their diet may have compensated for the low UVR.

Image Source. Photo by Werner Ustorf (Flickr). Cheddar Man reconstruction.

A separate population appeared in Eastern Europe, defined as EHG (Eastern Hunter-Gatherer) and an SHG (Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer) admixed between the two groups.

Image Source. Map of distribution for WHG genetic cluster across Europe.

Mesolithic Europe

These were the last of the European hunter-foragers who needed to adapt to climatic and environmental changes of the Holocene period. The Younger Dryas (12,900 to 11,700 years before present) represented a return of bitterly cold conditions before the rapid commencement of the Holocene. See the below trend in temperatures. Temperatures in Greenland rose by 10 C in only a decade.

Image Source.  Evolution of temperature in the Post-Glacial period according to Greenland ice cores (Younger Dryas)

Flora change followed this rapid rise in annual temperatures. During the Earlier Mesolithic, tundra grasslands were gradually replaced by birch scrub, followed by forest. Species to reach Britain included birch, alder, pine, and alder. During the Later Mesolithic, temperatures continued to rise. Lime (Linden), hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn, ash, elm / wych elm, followed. Beech probably didn't arrive until the end of the Mesolithic period. It had previously been speculated that Late Mesolithic lowland Britain would have been covered by one continuous wildwood canopy. However, pollen analysis has suggested some areas of open grassland, possibly kept open by the ruminations of large herbivores such as aurochs (wild cattle), bison, red deer, and roe deer. There has been some suggestion that the hunter-gatherers may have been managing these areas, and extending them with fire. This may have improved the regeneration of hazel (hazel nut was likely to have been a very important food source), and better, more open hunting conditions, where ungulates herd together in the open.

Lithics

The knapped flint and stone tools of the Mesolithic are largely characterised by the production of very small blades known as microliths. These would often be notched into small geometric shapes. Arrows were likely composite, with a microlith point, and small microlith barbs being glued and / or bound along the shaft behind that point. Microliths may have had further uses as microburins (piercers or borers for hide clothing etc) or as scalpel blades for working wood, bone, and antler. A further stone tool associated with this period is the Mesolithic tranchet axe head.

A tranchet axe head that I recorded during my surveying years.

Antler working

Star Carr is a well known archaeological site in North Yorkshire that dates to between 11,280, and 10,500 years before present. This places it shortly after the end of the Younger Dryas during the Earlier Mesolithic.

Image Source.  Star Carr collection at Yorkshire museum - mesolithic spear tips from the earliest known post glacial settlement in England. Star Carr has become the type site for the NW European Earlier Mesolithic.

yDNA haplogroup L in Medieval Cherry Hinton, England

Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire, James Alexander Cameron on Flickr

Most of our nuclear DNA recombines with every generation. But a yDNA Haplogroup is a genetic marker that follows along the direct paternal line, passed down from biological father to son. Follow it back, and it will follow your father's father's, father's, etc.  Most NW European males carry a yDNA haplogroup of R, or I. Sometimes G, J, E. However, I have a variant of L, defined by a mutation coded M20 (L-M20). yDNA haplogroup L is regarded as Non-European and some will insist that it is South Asian. I can reliably trace my own paternal line back to 18th Century Oxfordshire / Thames Valley.  yDNA haplogroup L is NOT seen as European. It is seen as an Asian genetic marker. The males of two English families share my own mutations: BROOKER of Oxfordshire and CHANDLER of Basingstoke, Hampshire. My next closest yDNA matches are men from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, India, and Lebanon. 

Cherry Hinton, Cambs.

Excavation of a Medieval Cemetery. Ancient DNA revealed.

Consequently, when I saw that FTDNA had given me Ancient Connections from here in England, I at first thought it a mistake. Yet there they were, two excavated skeletons from a medieval cemetery in Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire.

Were they relatives / ancestors of the Brooker and Chandler lines?

I investigated. These two human remains dating between 940 CE and 1170 CE, and coded Cherry Hinton 919 and 936 had the M349 and B374 variants. I can best demonstrate our paternal relationship by a plan:


The most recent mutation shared by both myself, and these Medieval Cambridgeshire Men, is M317. The TMRCA (Time of most recent common ancestor) to all descendants, is I'm afraid, 12,700 years ago. The M317 variant first formed 18,100 years ago. Therefore, I and the Cherry Hinton men, last shared a common paternal line at the end of the last Ice Age. I would suggest that our common yDNA ancestors lived somewhere between Anatolia, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both my own SK1412, and their M349 formed around 12,700 years before present. We cannot share our direct paternal lines before 10,700 BCE.

What do we know about these Medieval men? I have scoured the excavation reports and data sheets:

Genetic history of Cambridgeshire before and after the Black Death

'In total, 48 individuals from Cherry Hinton were targeted for DNA extraction in this study, including 24 females and 24 males (Table S1). Two of the sampled individuals have been directly radiocarbon dated.'

'Cherry Hinton The settlement of Church End Cherry Hinton (Cherry Hinton) is located around six kilometers southeast of Cambridge. In the late 9th to the mid-10th century, a large thengly (aristocratic) or proto-manorial center was established (92, 93). The associated timber chapel and graveyard were excavated in 1999 by the Hertfordshire Archaeological Trust (subsequently Archaeological Solutions and now Wardell Armstrong) in advance of development of the site in accordance with the appropriate planning regulations'

More on the excavation in this Current Archaeology report.

Cherry Hinton 919 (sk3262) was related to a female (mother, or sister?) number 947 (sk3262) with whom he shared his mtDNA haplogroup U5b3e His yDNA was sequenced as L-B374.

Cherry Hinton 936 (sk2077) had no close relatives (albeit had to have shared his paternal line with 919). His mtDNA was T4b4+152. His own yDNA was also L-B374.

Both sequenced from tooth root; classed in Rural 4 group; dated between 940 CE to 1140 CE

The route of their yDNA was: L-M20>M22>M317>M349>B374. See plan above.

The route of the modern BROOKER / CHANDLER lines is: L-M20>M22>M317>SK1412>SK1414>FGC51041>FGC51036

 L-B374 Today

Only one modern English, or British tester, has so far tested on ftDNA, or registered on yFull with a result of L-B374.

The only modern Asian samples have been a single tester from Kazakhstan. Rather, the highest density of testers have placed their paternal lines in Switzerland, The apparent centre of modern L-B374 - this variant looks very European. The TMRCA for B374 is 600 BCE. Following Switzerland, it has also been reported in: Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Tatarstan, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia.

This is not the case with my own variant (L-FGC51036). Other than the two South English families, our closest yDNA relatives have been from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, India, and Turkey. Our own line arrived independently, and possibly later than that of the Cherry Hinton Men. I propose an Early Medieval date for the arrival of my own paternal line in England. Maybe one day we will get as lucky, and our own paternal line ancestors will be excavated?

Documentary Paternal line.

I have proven descent from John Henry Brooker, through genetic matching to support the documentary evidence. I and my sibling share some centimorgans of autosomal DNA with descendants of his sister. Additionally, smaller segments are shared from the prior few generations, to support that this paternal line is biologically true, at least back to Generation 5 (great great grandparent). He was the only one of my great grandfather's not to be Norfolk-born.

If I follow his paternal line (BROOKER) back using traditional genealogical method, I follow it back to the Thames Valley borderlands of rural Oxfordshire and Berkshire. I have good, strong documentary evidence back to my direct paternal line 5 x great grandfather, Edward Brucker, born 1757 at Long Wittenham, Berkshire.

Support for my 6 x great grandfather being a John Brooker born 1722 at Hagbourne, Berkshire in 1722 is pretty good. His father before him I have verified, was another John Brooker born 1691 at Hagbourne. His father was Thomas Brucker, also baptised at Hagbourne in 1658.  If biologically true, he would be my 8 x great grandfather and that would place my Y chromosome in Hagbourne, Berkshire in 1658. The Chandlers who share the yDNA descend from a Thomas Chandler who lived in Basingstoke, Hampshire during the late 18th century. At some point prior to that, our two paternal lines must merge.

Anything earlier than 1658 Hagbourne, too much doubt creeps in, but I have candidates stretching back a few generations waiting for more supportive evidence. They are in the Wantage/Uffington area of Oxfordshire. Caution - they may be incorrect. Another candidate in in Whitchurch, Hampshire.

I've researched the BROOKER surname:

Distribution of BROOKER baptisms AD 1550 - AD 1600 by English County.  County boundaries modern, but East and East Surrey united for historical purposes.  Includes records of derivations of Brooker surname.

During the 16th Century CE, it was not a common surname in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Its origins are the Sussex / Surrey area. It is possible that I had a Brooker surname ancestor move up through Hampshire into the area. I think that our surname picked up the yDNA in Hampshire, or in a South English port. My favourite hypothesis is that a South West Asian sailor visited, and left a son there early into the Medieval.

This hypothesis might seem unlikely, yet it brings me to:

Updown Girl

In my previous post concerning Anglo Saxon DNA, I discussed this report:


A 2022 survey, where hundreds of ancient human remains were sequenced for DNA. My favourite treasure of that study, came from an Anglo-Saxon grave in Kent. A girl, who had died during the early 7th Century CE (600s) around the age of 11 years of age. She was buried with Anglo Saxon artefacts, with full respect. She was related to some other nearby individuals (great aunts?) who had artefacts suggestive of Frankish origin.

On sequencing UpDown Girl's DNA, it was revealed that 33% was West African in origin!  UpDown Girl most probably had a grandfather from West Africa. Her DNA was most like the modern Esan or Yoruba population groups.

This is another example of why we should be very wary of not generalising. There were always a few travellers who would move far from home. It could be that my Asian sailor was another one, like UpDown Girl?

More on this spectacular find by link:

Wikipedia - UpDown Girl


Anglo-Saxon Migration - the latest genetic evidence 2024

In 2015, the Peopling of the British Isles (POBI) research group, published this paper:

The Fine-scale genetic structure of the British Population  Leslie, Winney etal POBI 2015

It proposed that the Early Medieval migration events commonly known as Anglo-Saxon (a better term to include the 9th Century surge could be Anglo-Danish), has been exaggerated. They concluded that the modern English had only 10% to 40% descent from these Continental immigrants, with the remainder majority reflecting earlier Iron Age / Romano British ancestry.

An independent 2016 investigation by Schiffels, Haak etal looked at ancientDNA from cemeteries in Cambridgeshire. The results supported POBI's conclusion, proposing:

'East English population derives 38% of its ancestry from Anglo-Saxon migrations'


This has quickly shifted into the domain of public lore. That the Anglo-Saxons did not displace the local Britons, that they did merge, with those of British ancestry assuming Anglo-Saxon culture, and that the modern ethnic English of local descent, have only a minority of Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

There were criticisms of both studies. POBI had been based on the DNA of modern populations. Whilst the Haak, Schiffel etal study contained too few ancientDNA samples.


A new study published in 2022, by a similar research team:


This study has been based on far more samples of ancientDNA. A total of 460 NW Europeans including 278 individuals from England. In conclusion, they continue to emphasise admixture, a merging, and the adoption by some people of local descent, of Continental Northern European (Anglo-Saxon) grave goods. They managed to map local family histories of merging population.

They increased the projected impact of Continental Northern European DNA on the British genome.


A recap:
  • POBI 2015 suggested 10% - 40% Anglo-Danish
  • The small scale Schiffels, Haak etal report of 2016 suggested 38% 'Continental Northern European'  (Anglo-Danish) in the Cambridgeshire region.

The 2022 study based on hundreds of ancient remains increased the percentage of new arrivals. They conclude that it is higher further east, closer to the North Sea, but declines as an average in Western England.  At its peak in Eastern England, they projected that Anglo-Danish accounted for 76% of the genome:

'the individuals who we analysed from eastern England derived up to 76% of their ancestry from the continental North Sea zone, albeit with substantial regional variation and heterogeneity within sites.'

This is a higher estimate than that proposed by the previous two studies.

The discussion was not restricted to the percentage of this Continental Northern European DNA. They also examined the origins of these early medieval immigrants. They concluded that they had arrived from a belt across Northern Europe that focused on Frisia, North Germany, and Denmark. They also suggest a smaller, secondary population from further south that might be Frankish. Finally, they detected that this immigration event extended for longer than previously thought, extending into the 8th Century CE, and blending into the Danish settlement.



One fascinating find, I will discuss in another post, concerns the remains excavated in Kent of the UpDown Girl. Just as a taster:



A small caveat. None of these genetic studies can distinguish between Anglo-Saxon DNA and the later, Medieval Danish DNA. Hence, it might be better to consider this as Anglo-Danish. But in some ways, the 9th Century was a fresh surge of the same immigration event.

The Forgotten Origin of the British - Late Bronze Age


Image of an LBA socketed axehead from Portable Antiquities Scheme

The Forgotten Contribution to the South British Genome.

 A research team looking at ancientDNA led by David Reich had already detected a 97% population replacement across Britain at the close of the Neolithic period, circa 2,300 BCE. They proposed that the Earlier, European Neolithic Farmers of Britain, were replaced by a new people, associated with the Bell Beaker artefact culture. These new people had previously been admixed between European Neolithic Farmers living on the Continent, and recently migrants from the Pontic & Caspian Steppes of Eurasia. 

Northern Europe has more of this migrant Yamnaya / Steppe ancestry which arrived during the 3rd Millennium BCE, while Southern Europe (peaking in Sardinia, then Iberia) has more residual ancestry from the earlier, European Neolithic Farmers. Yet the South British (English) have rather more Neolithic ancestry than other Northern neighbours. This raised questions concerning where had this DNA come from.

Reich's team speculated on this result, and investigated the remains of ancient DNA further. This was later reported on:

Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/183814/2/Manuscript.pdf

In the above paper, the research team suggest a secondary migration event, that followed the Bell Beaker population replacement. They date it to the end of the Middle Bronze Age / start of the Late Bronze Age circa 900 BCE, although proposed that it had slowly been arriving for some time, before a surge of new arrivals to Britain. They do not pinpoint where these immigrants come from, but by their heavier Neolithic ancestry, it is proposed that they had moved up from further south, most probably from France. How many? The study proposes a 50% DNA replacement in Southern Britain, across England & Wales. I think that is probably comparable to the most recent, highest estimates for the much later Anglo-Danish immigration event.

The tabloids of course, reacted:

From this it has further been proposed, that it may have been this forgotten immigration which brought the p-celtic and / or q-celtic languages to Britain. If you subscribe to identifying Iron Age Britons as Insular Celts then this could represent the arrival in Britain. 

Personally I feel that what we 21st Century CE people believe to be Insular Celtic, reflects a much longer, older exchange of people and ideas across Britain, Ireland, and the Western Seaboard of Europe during the Bronze and Iron Ages. The Romans did much later, claim more recent Belgae migrations into Britain, some tribes even shared names with tribes in France and Belgium. These could represent a continuation of migration, possibly of elites. Prehistoric Britain was very much in contact with the nearby Continent, and a part of Europe.

Conclusion

Those socketed axe heads, and other artefacts of the Late Bronze Age may now be identified as representing a new culture and people, admixing into Southern Britain.

Through studies of ancient genomes, we are witnessing the reveal of a number of prehistoric migration events into Britain. These above, contribute to the modern British genome. Earlier migrations than these are also known. The Bell Beaker folk may have replaced to builders of Avebury, but those Neolithic Farmers had previously replaced the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers already here. Ancient DNA of Neolithic Britons is markedly different to that of any Mesolithic remains, and carries genetic markers from South West Asia.

Neither were the Mesolithic Britons aboriginal. The DNA of Cheddar Man (and others of his time from around Western Europe), originates from Arabia / Asia, and is different to any earlier so far sequenced. They were possibly not of the Magdalenian Culture. The story of the Europeans has often been a series of migrations from regions of Asia, both north and south of the Caucasus.

From this we should judge the Anglo-Danish (Anglo-Saxon plus later Danish arrivals) immigration, as being no more than one of several such events, with earlier examples until recently, lost in prehistory.

Original Nature publication:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04287-4

On BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-59741723

Earlier Posts:

The Beaker phenomenon and genetic transformation of Northwest Norfolk. A layman's take 2017

https://paulbrooker.posthaven.com/the-beaker-phenomenon-and-genetic-transformation-of-northwest-europe-2017-a-laymans-take

Celebrating my Steppe and Beaker ancestors

https://paulbrooker.posthaven.com/celebrating-my-steppe-and-beaker-ancestors

Own Photo.

DNA-4-Ancestry Test Comparison. Reviewing the DNA Companies. Updated to 2024


Comparing results from actual recorded ancestry, to that predicted by Ancestry.com, 23andme, My Heritage, Living DNA, FT-DNA and more.

Recorded Ancestry

I have researched my genealogy for circa forty years on and off. Since back in the day of interviews, visits to church yards, county archives, and London based archives. Before any internet genealogy, never mind genetic genealogy. Is it perfect? Of course not. I have a family tree of 6,000 family members. I've forgotten how many direct ancestors but certainly well over 300. Stretching back to the 16th century (1500s) in a number of places. The majority (thankfully) is very local to myself. Ancestry reports that I have based it on 19,600 records. I have certainly referenced my resources, and do not restrict them to the Internet. I still sometimes visit archives, etc.

Genetic Genealogy by DNA matches at Ancestry.co.uk, 23andme, Living DNA, FT-DNA and MyHeritage support the recorded tree very well over the past several generations on all sides. Plenty of support from centimorgans of shared DNA with other testers.

I base my Recorded Ancestry percentages on Generation 6. That is my great great great grandparents.

97% were English
Most East Anglian Norfolk, with some East Midlands and the Oxfordshire area.
3% Swiss.

No others. No Irish, Scottish, Scandinavians, Italians, Greeks, French, Turkmen, Balochi, etc.

So what did the DNA companies tell me?

Results

Ancestry.com/co.uk did very well only if you take the England & NW Europe category to be 'English'. They've been quite thoughtful in generating this category. Because the problem with the SE English is that we are too close to Dutch, Norman, and Danish to tell apart. This is because we have long, deep roots in those regions. The sub regions of their genetic communities is very good. But the community of E India might be down to having a tested family member with paternal roots in Sri Lanka? Maybe not.

My Heritage does very well. Although they have little bias towards Ashkenazi and SW Asia that just shows up. Still, not bad, they have improved.

Living DNA, an English business. Dear oh dear, what goes on there? They have even assigned my yDNA to the entirely wrong haplogroup!

FT-DNA, no better. Despite being the premier business for testing haplogroups, their autosomal test lets them down

23andme? Wtf. I know their problem. I'm convinced that their 'British & Irish' dataset is full of Irish or Irish American? It does not understand SE English DNA, and splits us with Continental datasets. As for their sub regions, I suspect based on dodgy DNA from health companies, collected from modern postcodes. That would explain that it shows where East Anglian ancestry has moved to over the past few centuries, not where it came from.

WeGene is convinced that I am French. Non.

They are all to various extents confused by medieval migration. Because with so much East Anglian ancestry, I have links across the North West European Continent from the earlier medieval. The East Anglians are probably very like Frisians etc. Our DNA is all so similar that these tests cannot tell us apart.

Well the tests were ALL very good for assigning my ancestry as a European. And pretty good at seeing it as primarily NW European. That's good. BUT, below that level, none of these tests could be described as accurate.

Fanboys of these tests beware.


The above is a fan chart of my direct ancestry, that I made in 2018. The coloured areas are supported by DNA matching (genetic genealogy) although I have had volumes of additional matches since then.

Notes for Mesolithic Western Europeans. The last free people of Europe.

Lola, Mesolithic girl on National Geographic

The above is a link to a reconstruction by Tom Björklund of a Mesolithic girl who lived in what is now Denmark. It is a very unique and creative reconstruction, because nothing physical of this girl nicknamed Lola survives into our archaeological record! She is only known by her DNA (and that of recently eaten food) that she left on a lump of birch tree pitch that she had chewed as a gum some 5,700 years ago. But I really like this reconstruction. I think that she makes a beautiful wild child. Straight out of the lines of a novel that I'm trying to write.

Analysis of her DNA strongly suggests brown toned skin, if not dark brown. Her hair dark brown. The DNA supports that her eyes were light coloured. Perhaps blue, blue-green or hazel? I'll return to Lola, but first these features correspond to those suggested by the genomes of other Mesolithic remains scattered around Europe.

Cheddar Man

Cheddar Man who lived in South West Britain around 10,000 years ago is the best known. The revelation several years ago that the DNA sequenced from his genome, suggests both dark skin and blue eyes caused quite a commotion. A lot of people didn't like it, and accused the geneticists of woke.

We always knew that the earliest modern humans were likely to have plenty of melanin. Subsisting on a hunter-gatherer diet that was rich in dietary Vitamin D meant that there was little adaptive pressure for them to lose this dark skin in a hurry. Just as some hunters in the far north and far south have retained dark skins into recent times. The emphasis to reduce melanin may not have arrived until following major shifts to a poor, agricultural diet in northern zones. The DNA associated with very light skin of modern Western Europeans may not have arrived until quite recently (prehistorically speaking).

We also had Villabruna Man in Northern Italy. His presence and DNA is less known to the general public. But even before the controversy of the Cheddar Man reconstruction, we knew from Villabruna and other remains that he lacked certain genetic indicators of light skin and:

Additional evidence of an early link between west and east comes from the HERC2 locus, where a derived allele that is the primary driver of light eye color in Europeans appears nearly simultaneously in specimens from Italy and the Caucasus ~14,000-13,000 years ago.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4943878/

But one recent study proposes that there were at least two distinct clusters of hunter-gatherers around Europe at the close of the last Ice Age:

On the basis of the genetic variation of present-day Europeans, this could imply phenotypic differences between post-14 ka hunter-gatherer populations across Europe, with individuals in the Oberkassel cluster possibly exhibiting darker skin and lighter eyes, and individuals in the Sidelkino cluster possibly lighter skin and darker eye colour.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05726-0

 I think that may be close to the truth, that there was most likely a variation in skin tones and eye colours across Europe during late prehistory.

Then we met 'Elba the Shepherdess' from Galicia, Spain. She dates to around 9,300 years ago. Analysis of Elba's ancient DNA suggests that she was dark-skinned and haired, and brown-eyed. Her remains had spectacularly been excavated along with three aurochs (wild cattle). Her relationship to these aurochs has raised extremely controversial questions about possible domestication. I do like the aurochs. I might make them the a subject of a later post.


Imagination


British Archaeology has long been going through a struggle where it tries to lose its roots within the Arts, and relocate itself within the (social) sciences. Clinging vigorously to data, they fear telling any stories (which is what hi-story does). In my own creative writing, I have my British hunter-gatherers at the close of the Mesolithic as shameless animists, who see themselves very much as a part of Nature. Mine are trapped into nations or tribes, divided into semi-nomadic bands who wander a larger region that I call a wilderness. In the background (but no longer in the novel) from their own golden age, they look back through folklore to an earlier time when they were more free, to wander further, one nation, following herds of steppe and forest bison.

In their own contemporary wilds 6000 years ago, I have them hunting red deer, roe deer, wild pig, aurochs (wild cattle), red squirrel, martens, seal, porpoise, whales, beaver, fox, waterfowl (ducks/geese), bustards, cranes, wood pigeon, woodcock, fishing/trapping eel, salmon, trout, chub, pike. Foraging for hazelnut, acorns (which they need to process to reduce tannin), cat-tails, wild garlic, pig-nuts, harvesting wild grass seeds, tubers, roots, tree sap, flower buds, lichens, sea lettuce, samphire, berries (blackberry, raspberry, elderberry, hawthorn), black bee honeycomb (yes they make berry mead and alcoholic birch sap), greens (including some springtime tree leaves), tree inner bark (in desperation or to chew), fungi (bollettes, blewitts, ceps, chanterelle, puffballs, chicken-of-the-woods and many more), mussels, sea molluscs /shellfish, crustaceans. I did also include beechnuts, but then found that the beech may have only just arrived with the Neolithic. Ugh! 

One thing that this creative writing has helped me understand about the British Late Mesolithic, is that the forests at that time lacked a wealth of biodiversity. Britain had parted from the European Continent too soon following the glaciers - Ireland more so. Few tree species had made it here. The temperate wild-woods (I don't think all of those in the south-east could have been classed as rain-forests) could be very mean with any calories between early winter and mid spring. I emphasise that in the story, the need to gather in late summer and through the autumn, and to process and store what they could. Acorns and hazel nuts could be roasted and even ground into a flour to make breads.  Wild grass seeds may have been added. The game would have been fatter at that time of year, and the salmon would run. Oh, I dare to suggest that my hunter-foragers are also gardeners of their wilds, encouraging hazel and birch to spread and survive.

Late winter may have been comparatively miserable, where the bands would laze close to hearths. Conserving valuable calories of their energy.

I enjoy imagining the wild-woods of SE Britain 4000 BCE. Perhaps not all temperate rain-forest, but neither anything like a modern day woods. Deadwood, flooding, saplings, rot, deep ferns and mosses. They would have been difficult to pass through by foot. Waterway would have been preferred. Trees with mosses and octopus boughs. Lime (linden) trees, elm, wych elm, oak, birch, alder, willow, ash, pine.  Wolves, lynx, brown bear. Eagles, black woodpeckers, and goshawks. But I don't imagine it all as wild-wood. I have opted in my imagined Britain 4000 BCE, for lots of small glades, and larger open plains that in the story, I call prairies. Here herds of aurochs join those of red and roe deer, to keep this scrub and grassland opened up. Bustards parade by orchids, while the cuckoo calls.

But all in my imagination. Not fact.



Returning to Lola in Denmark. The gum also revealed that she was lactose intolerant, and this has also been found in other genetic remains of this period. The DNA of hazel and mallard duck was also on the gum, and it is thought that hazelnut and duck may have been her recent meals. I think it is incredible archaeology that a lump of birch pitch could produce such a result. The 5,700 ybp was based on radio carbon dating of the lump of Mesolithic chewing gum.

When I was a voluntary archaeologist and field walker, I would treasure any microliths, microlith waste cores (I had a few), and a tranchet axe head (below) that I found from the Mesolithic. It was always my favourite period of prehistory. When people would have related to other species as a part of the Natural World to which they belonged. Innate animism that I strongly relate to as an autistic biophilliac. Or did they? Next post I will look at Gobekli Tepe and other sites of this same period across Anatolia. Have we simplified the savage?


So for all of their imperfections and inaccuracies, here are the faces of the Mesolithic. The last truly free wild people of European Nature. The last savages of Europe. Before we started to screw it all up.  Lola is my favourite.

Ancestry.com Updates - Updated Previews. DNA Beta Test Results

I recently had my Ancestry.com / Ancestry.co.uk results updated in the beta test - for myself and for my family.  The new results make AncestryDNA my most accurate DNA test so far.  Here are the screenshots for the latest results for my family kits:

My results before the Update:

Following the latest 2018 update:


My sibling's new results:

My Mother's:

I've updated my spreadsheet comparing different results for myself, from different vendors in order to reflect how well that the new Ancestry test is now working for myself and my family, compared to 23andme etal;

A few more screenshots: