OpenTube

Europe's Astonishing Hunter-Gatherer Resurgence

Dan Davis History

360,142 views

MyHeritage is running a special promotion for a limited time! Click the link https://bit.ly/DanDavisHistoryMyHeritage or scan the QR code, and use the coupon code DAN25 to get your DNA kit for just $/€25!
Genetic research has that thousands of years after the first farmers spread across Europe from Anatolia, traces of Europe’s Mesolithic hunter-gatherers re-emerged in the DNA of the Neolithic farmers. And many of the Neolithic farmer male lineages were replaced with hunter-gatherer ones. This unexpected genetic signal has been called “the Late Neolithic Hunter-Gatherer Resurgence.” What happened here, and why? And how did this resurgence transform Europe?

If you enjoy my videos please consider supporting the channel
Become a YouTube Channel Member: @dandavishistory
Support me on Patreon: Patreon: dandavisauthor
All my books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3xngwz5

Sources

The First Farmers of Europe https://amzn.to/3wNDcqA
The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe https://amzn.to/43eSVRO
Haak, W., Lazaridis, I., Patterson, N. et al. Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe. Nature (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14317
Mathieson, I., Alpaslan-Roodenberg, S., Posth, C. et al. The genomic history of southeastern Europe. Nature (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature25778
Lazaridis, I., Patterson, N., Mittnik, A. et al. Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans. Nature (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13673
Lipson, M., Szécsényi-Nagy, A., Mallick, S. et al. Parallel palaeogenomic transects reveal complex genetic history of early European farmers. Nature (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24476
Maïté Rivollat et al. ,Ancient genome-wide DNA from France highlights the complexity of interactions between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers. (2020). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aaz5344
Iñigo Olalde et al. ,The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years. Science363,1230-1234(2019). DOI:10.1126/science.aav4040
Villalba-Mouco, Vanessa et al. Survival of Late Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherer Ancestry in the Iberian Peninsula, Current Biology, Volume 29, Issue 7, 1169 - 1177.e7
C. Valdiosera, et al, Four millennia of Iberian biomolecular prehistory illustrate the impact of prehistoric migrations at the far end of Eurasia, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717762115 (2018).
Nikitin, A.G., Stadler, P., Kotova, N. et al. Interactions between earliest Linearbandkeramik farmers and central European hunter gatherers at the dawn of European Neolithization. (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-56...
Freilich, S., Ringbauer, H., Los, D. et al. Reconstructing genetic histories and social organisation in Neolithic and Bronze Age Croatia. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-94...
Rivollat, M., H. et al. Extensive pedigrees reveal the social organization of a Neolithic community. Nature (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06...
Betti, L., Beyer, R.M., Jones, E.R. et al. Climate shaped how Neolithic farmers and European hunter-gatherers interacted after a major slowdown from 6,100 bce to 4,500 bce. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-08...
Immel, A., Pierini, F., Rinne, C. et al. Genome-wide study of a Neolithic Wartberg grave community reveals distinct HLA variation and hunter-gatherer ancestry (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-01...
Carvalho, Hunter-gatherer genetic persistence at the onset of megalithism in western Iberia: New mitochondrial evidence from Mesolithic and Neolithic necropolises in central-southern Portugal, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2023....
Moments of crisis: climate change in Scottish prehistory. (2013). Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. https://doi.org/10.9750/PSAS.142.9.25
Gelabert, P., Schmidt, R.W., Fernandes, D.M. et al. Genomes from Verteba cave suggest diversity within the Trypillians in Ukraine. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-11...
Rivollat M, Ancient DNA gives new insights into a Norman Neolithic monumental cemetery dedicated to male elites. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2120786119
Croze, et al. Genomic diversity and structure of prehistoric alpine individuals from the Tyrolean Iceman’s territory. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61...

The above includes affiliate links so we may make a small commission from your purchases at no additional cost to you which is a way to support the channel.

Thank you

Artistic reconstructions by Ancient Europeans Instagram: ancienteuropeans2
Neolithic expansions map by Detlef Gronenborn: https://zenodo.org/records/16881455

Video Chapters

00:00 Hunter-Gatherer Resurgence
01:50 Sponsor
03:54 Mesolithic Europe
05:40 Neolithic expansions
07:01 HG + Farmer Admixture
13:49 The Resurgence
16:59 HG Conquests?
20:18 After the Resurgence
24:17 A New Narrative?

20 Comments

@DanDavisHistory Creator 10 months ago Pinned

@georgejanzen774 10 months ago

As a researcher in the organic residue analysis sphere (lipids in ancient pottery), I greatly appreciate you for popularizing archaeological science. No fantastical grifting, and yet the stories are so compelling on their own!

@DiscoballDestro 9 months ago

I love how advances in genetics has shown just how complicated this period was.

@EtruscanMindset 10 months ago

I wish more people would write novels about Europe's prehistory. So much romance and adventure. Dan is such a great pioneer in this – sets a high standard to beat.

@Replicaate 10 months ago

Neolithic agriculturalist: Having domesticated plants and animals is pretty great and all but I do kinda miss the mobility our tribe had in grandpa hunter-gatherer's time.
Steppe pastoralist: Allow me to show you this nifty thing called a horse!

@johnby3843 10 months ago

Here's an off-the-top hypothesis. Once the LBK started breaking up and presumably warring, maybe it was comparable to the french-indian /7 years' war, with different farmer groups teaming up with different HG groups to fight each other, mix, etc.

@darylturner2321 10 months ago

My grandparents had a farm, but in the off season, after the harvest, went hunting. These hunts could last several weeks & brought home lots of meat - enough to last the winter anyway. So were they “hunters” or “farmers”. Perhaps both. Perhaps the ancients did the same….

@OneInterestedPerson 8 months ago

I can’t get enough of this ancient genetic code mapping. I feel it’s a vital key to discovering more about how much exploration and knowledge we have lost.

@nowhereman6019 10 months ago

"I AM SICK AND TIRED OF PLOWING AND SOWING. I JUST WANT TO HUNT AND GATHER."
-Some paleolithic European

@MrBlack74 10 months ago

Commenting so the algorithm sees the engagement. Love your work, Dan

@jasonborn867 10 months ago

Dan, would love to see a video on the 54,000 year old arrowheads found at Mandrin Cave, France. What happened to these hunter gatherers, their incredible lithic technology and genetic contribution? Would be so cool hearing this story and Neanderthal occupation of the site. Excellent video - LIKE BUTTON SMASHED!

@AndyHasIt 7 months ago (edited)

Has anyone considered that the reason why the massive displacement of male farmer lineages by male hunter gatherers makes no sense to everyone looking at it, is because everyone just assumes the farmer societies were patriarchal? If we consider these were, or became, matriarchal societies, then you don't need the same mental gymnastics to account for the shift.

@theghosthero6173 10 months ago

This reminds me a lot of the Mexica people, better known as Aztecs, who after the fall of the centralized power of Teotihuacan around lake Texcoco, settled and become subsistance farmers, once likely being part of the semi nomadic groups they themselves later called barbarians (chichimecas) that lived north of central Mexico. So there might be other precedent to these dynamics of hunter-gatherer integrating settled societies and eventually coming on top.

@richardnicklin654 10 months ago

Interestingly ~4500BC is consistent with dates for smallpox entering human hosts - and it can cause male sterility.

@a.r.h9919 10 months ago

Farmercels want you to forget about this

@darylwilliams7883 9 months ago

One of the interesting things about the replacement of one lifestyle by another is that you could make a go of farming if you were stupid, but had a strong back. Hunter-gatherer lifestyle required a lot more knowledge about the land, the resources, and how to utilize them.

@sirseigan 10 months ago

In Sweden new research has show that the old Scandinavian Hunter Gatherers (SHG) got an influx from the east from the Baltics, probably via the coastline of southern Finland and Åland archipelago and these created the Pitted Ware Culture (PWC).

Antaolian Farmers (AF) lived inland side by side with the PWC who lived along the coast. They did not mix genetically but seem to have traded. The inland culture were based around farming, the costal culture were based around hunting, fishing and trade (and some suggest raiding).

Later came the Funnel Beaker Culture (FBC) from the south but they to did not push away the PWC from their costal settlement but mixed with the Antolian Farmers in the inland who they seem to have culturally replaced over time. The relation with the coastal people seem to have stayed the same.

Another immigration came from the south in the form of the local variant of the Corded Ware Culture (CWC) called either the Battle Axe Culture or the Bost Axe Culture (BAC). These were the ones who came with the indo-european language and religion etc but the also brought cattle (and perhaps horses). However, like FBC before them they too did not displace the PWC along the coasts, especially the eastern Baltic coast of Sweden. Instead they seem to have gradually mixed and replace the FBC in the inland, creating a inland cattle herding and and farming culture. They lived side by side with the seminomadic hunter gathering PWC (although they eventually got tame pigs) for like a thousand years, not mixing genetically but trading. With time the BAC seem to have replaced the PWC, but here is the kicker; only in material culture and not in DNA. So with time the PWC takes on the material culture and somecof the customs and perhaps the language of the BAC but they are still not mixing DNA it seems.

When then the two cultures merge materially the Nordic Bronze Age starts. Some suggests that it were some of the costal former PWC families that facilitated the long distance trade needed to accuire bronze, and hence be came an elite. Based on later pattern they might have traded cattle hides from the inland people to export, as part of the goods they exchanged for bronze. It is by this time we start to see a genetical mixing between the former PWC and the BAC.

Some speculate that this division of livestyles and relation was kept into the iron age and are the basis for the tribes of Swedes and the Geats/Gauti/Goths/Gutar/Götar. The Swedes controlled and facilitated the maritime trade along the southeaster baltic coast of Sweden all the way over to the Finnish Bay, modern day St Petersburg, and beyond. The inland living Götar provided cattle hides and meat to the Swedish traders who took it on export. Some Götish chieftians became partners of the Swedish king and they becsme part of the organised trade. Hence started the confedaration between the Swedes and the Göts where the Swedes had the right to elect the king but the Götar had tge right to refuse their candidate (so the king had to have a power base in both tribes, so basically have relatives/kin-networks in both tribes). This trade union turn confederation is the political fundation on which the Swedish kingdom came to rest.

@johnwiles4391 10 months ago

I recall reading the work of a scholar (who wasn't impressed by Joseph Campbell's work, but that's for another time) whose name I unfortunately cannot remember, who posited that the centaur motif of rugged uncouthness but with great natural wisdom and medical knowledge was a memory of farmers of encountering mounted people. I realize this probably doesn't align with known horse riding timelines, but I have always remembered that idea and I found it interesting and worth sharing.