Surprising origins of Britain’s Bronze Age immigrants revealed

Analysis of ancient DNA has revealed the origins of a mysterious group that appeared in Britain around 2400 BC and replaced the people who built Stonehenge within a century or less.

These people were associated with the Bell Beaker culture, which appeared in Western Europe in the Early Bronze Age and is named after the shape of the typical vessels they left behind. This culture probably originated in Portugal or Spain, but a new study reveals that the people who dominated Britain came from the North Sea, the river deltas of the Low Countries. This hardy population retained some of their hunter-gatherer lifestyle and ancestry for millennia after the first farmers swept across Europe.

David Reich at Harvard University and his colleagues studied the genomes of 112 people who lived in what is now the Netherlands, Belgium and western Germany between 8500 and 1700 BC.

Before joining the project, Reich wasn’t too enthusiastic, he admits: “The Netherlands seemed like the most boring place in the world – every single piece of land had been walked a million times. But it turned out to be perhaps the most interesting place in Europe.”

DNA sequenced by his laboratory revealed a population established in the Rhine-Meuse delta on the Dutch-Belgian border, descended from a resourceful group of hunters and gatherers who survive in the waterlogged wetlands around these large rivers and feed on fish, waterfowl, game and a variety of plants.

Neolithic farmers originating in Anatolia spread across Europe from around 6500 BC, probably because their ability to produce their own food meant they could raise many more children than hunter-gatherers. In just a few centuries, the genetic ancestry of hunter-gatherers disappeared or was heavily diluted in every place that farmers arrived.

But not, ancient DNA shows, in these wetlands, where an influx of farming genes has remained dispersed for several thousand years. The dynamic, regularly flooded landscape of rivers, marshes, dunes and bogs was a nightmare for early farmers, but rich with opportunity for those who knew how to survive there, team member says Luc Amkreutz at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, the Netherlands. “These hunter-gatherers forged their own path from a position of strength.

Judging by DNA, these people were far from marginalized. Passed down from father to son, their Y chromosomes remained largely hunter-gatherers for another 1,500 years or so after farmers arrived in the region, while their mitochondrial DNA and X chromosomes reveal a steady stream of farmer daughters joining them. “It was really a surprise to us,” says a team member Eveline Altena at the Leiden University Medical Center. “Something you can’t really tell without DNA.

It was likely a largely peaceful process involving communities where women tend to move while men stay in their homesteads, Reich says, although an element of force cannot be ruled out. This exchange could have gone either way, but DNA preservation is much poorer in drier areas where farmers lived, so it remains unknown for now, he says.

Archaeological remains reveal that, over time, hunter-gatherers gradually adopted pottery, cultivated grain, and domesticated animals without abandoning their original lifestyle.

Then, around 3000 BC, a tribe of nomadic herders called the Yamna or Yamnaya began to migrate westward from the steppes of present-day Ukraine and Russia. Their encounters with Eastern European farmers gave rise to the Corded Ware culture, named for the cord-like decoration of its pottery. Their descendants who swept through much of Europe but barely made a dent in the delta.

The study identified one skeleton from this period with a Yamna Y chromosome, and the dig also revealed pots, some of which were used to cook fish—another example of wetlands making use of new objects from abroad. Overall, however, few people had much, if any, steppe ancestry.

This changed when the Bell Beaker culture appeared around 2500 BC. These people introduced steppe ancestry into the wetland people’s DNA, but a significant 13 to 18 percent of their distinctive hunter-gatherer and early farmer genetic mix remained. Maybe that’s when they started to fade into history. But it turns out they’re not quite done yet.

A new study reveals that people who arrived in Britain around 2400 BC had almost exactly the same mix of Bell Beaker genes and wetland communities. And within a century they would have almost – or even completely – replaced the Neolithic farmers who built Stonehenge. “Our models show that at least 90 percent but up to 100 percent of the original origin has been lost. [from Britain]” says Reich.

It is not entirely clear whether this began with the arrival of the Bell Beaker culture in Britain or whether other people migrated earlier. Before the Bell Beakers arrived, people in Britain cremated their dead instead of burying them, meaning they rarely left DNA behind.

In any case, what happened was “very dramatic, almost unbelievable,” says Reich. The reasons for this rapid replacement have intrigued archaeologists since a 2018 study first suggested it. Reich suspects that it’s a disease like the plague that people on the European continent may have been exposed to earlier. People in Britain, meanwhile, may have been more vulnerable to him.

What probably didn’t play a role is religious fervor, says a team member Harry Fokkens at Leiden University. “Existing monuments like Stonehenge and Avebury have remained in use and have even been extended after the people who created them have left.”

Michael Parker Pearson at University College London is fascinated by the extent to which the new population adopted British monumental styles such as henge and stone circles, even as they brought with them a whole new way of life, including new styles of pottery and dress.

Bell Beaker people also introduced metals to Britain, he adds. “Some gold hair ornaments found in Beaker graves in Britain are almost identical to those found in Belgium.”

Human origins and gentle walking in prehistoric south-west England

Immerse yourself in the early human periods of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages on this gentle walk.

topics: