The Pan-European Impact of the Balkan Hunter-Gatherers
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) 26–19 thousand years ago (kya), Europe had three principal refugia not covered by ice: the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas 1,2 . While the Iberian and Italian refugia have been studied with ancient DNA 3–7 , the legacy of the Balkan refugium has remained a mystery due to a lack of genetic data 30 – 12 kya. We present genome-wide data from nine newly reported individuals: three Epipaleolithic from Romania, one Epipaleolithic from Bosnia and Herzegovina, three Mesolithic from Greece, one Epipaleolithic from Southern Italy, and one Mesolithic from Sardinia. We find that the Epipaleolithic individuals from Romania and the Mesolithic individual from mainland Greece were from a previously unsampled population that was the primary source for later European hunter-gatherers. Westward expansion of Balkan Epipaleolithic people into the Italian Peninsula and mixture with a minority contribution from pre-LGM Italians, produced a population that then spread further west to become the primary ancestry of west-ern European Mesolithic people. Northeastward expansion, bypassing Italy, contributed the European ancestry source of Scandinavian and Eastern European hunter-gatherers. Southeastward expansion to the Aegean led to Anatolian-European mixtures before the spread of farming.
Authors: Daniel Tabin, Dušan Borić, Arev P. Sümer, Gregory Soos, Francesca Alhaique, Clive Bonsall, Adina Boroneant, Francesca Candilio, Emanuela Cristiani, Tracy Cullen, Ivana Fiore, Charoula M. Fotiadou, Stella Katsarou, Adisa Lepić, Ana Marić, Alana Masciana, Rita T. Melis, Margherita Mussi, Anastasia Papathanasiou, Catherine Perlès, T. Douglas Price, Kristine Korzow, Adamantios Sampson, Andrei Soficaru, Antonio Tagliacozzo, Kevin Uno, Orhan Efe Yavuz, Swapan Mallick, Iosif Lazaridis, Nick Patterson, Cosimo Posth, Ron Pinhasi, Nadin Rohland, Mateja Hajdinjak, Esther Brielle, David Reich
Institutions: Harvard University, New York University, Columbia University, Sapienza University of Rome, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Edinburgh, Romanian Academy, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, University of Tübingen, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, University of Cagliari, Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering, National Research Council, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris Nanterre, Technologie et Ethnologie des Mondes PréhistoriqueS, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Texas A&M University, University of the Aegean, 1 Decembrie 1918 University, Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Broad Institute, University of Vienna
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7202078437