The Neolithic or agricultural ‘revolution’ is widely seen as a cornerstone of modern productive economy and as one of the most essential driving forces behind the sustained population growth since the beginning of the Holocene, c. 11,600 years ago. Early European agriculture is thought to have originated in Southwest Asia, where plants and animals were domesticated after a long process, in which foragers first settled down into village communities and became increasingly reliant on local resources and environments for their subsistence.
There are still considerable uncertainties regarding the origins of Europe’s first farmers and the nature of interactions between farmers and foragers. Neither the exact source of that ancestry trail, nor the demographics that sustained such a large population expansion are known, leaving important questions unanswered, such as: how many farmers migrated into Europe? Was there only one wave of migration or several? What was the size of populations at the wave front? Etc.
Recent advances in whole-genome ancient DNA research have shed new light on the dispersal of early farmers with their domestic plants and animals. Combined with other biomolecular proxies, such as stable dietary isotopes, and more traditional archaeological markers, such as burial practices, population genetics using ancient DNA provides a framework to explore the relatively complex interactions between farmers and foragers, who lived side by side in key frontier regions like the Danube Gorge in today’s Serbia and Romania, and the Eastern Marmara region in Turkey.
This project, integrating ancient DNA with high-resolution archaeological data, aimed to address how, in a practical sense, early farmers interacted with foragers, as well as with other farmers, during the initial phases of agricultural spread in Southeast Europe (c. 6,600-5,950 BC cal.). The role of indigenous foragers in the adoption of agriculture has often been overlooked and provides vital clues about one of the most important transitions in human history, with repercussions that are still felt today.
