Study: Stone Age migrants introduced agriculture to Europe

This undated picture provided by the Paliambela Excavation Project Archive, shows a human burial from the archaeological site of Paliambela in northern Greece.  

K. KOTSAKIS, P. HALSTEAD/PALIAMBELA EXCAVATION PROJECT ARCHIVE VIA AP

BERLIN -- Stone Age people from the Aegean Sea region moved into central and southern Europe some 8,000 years ago and introduced agriculture to a continent still dominated at the time by hunter-gatherers, scientists say.

The findings are based on genetic samples from ancient farming communities in Germany, Hungary and Spain. By comparing these with ancient genomes found at sites in Greece and northwest Turkey, where agriculture was practiced centuries earlier, researchers were able to draw a genetic line linking the European and Aegean populations.

The study challenges the notion that farming simply spread from one population to another through cultural diffusion. The findings were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

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