2 waves of mass murder struck prehistoric Denmark, genetic study reveals
Hunter-gatherers in what's now Denmark were wiped out within a few generations of the arrival of the first farmers in the region around 5,900 years ago, a new study finds. But these farmers were the new top dogs for only about a millennium — about 4,850 years ago, immigrants of Eastern Steppe ancestry largely wiped them out, according to a DNA analysis of prehistoric human remains. The research shows that there were two almost-complete population turnovers in Denmark in the past 7,300 years, according to one of four studies published together Jan. 10 in the journal Nature . "This transition has previously been presented as peaceful. However, our study indicates the opposite," study co-researcher Anne Birgitte Nielsen , a geology researcher and head of the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at Lund University in Sweden, said in a statement . "In addition to violent death, it is likely that new pathogens from livestock finished off many gatherers." To investigate...