European hunter-gatherers and immigrant farmers lived side-by-side

Hunter-gatherers and immigrant farmers lived side-by-side for more than 2,000 years in Central Europe, before the hunter-gatherer communities died out or were absorbed into the farming population. In a paper , researchers describe their analysis of DNA and isotopes from human bones found in the 'Blätterhöhle' cave near Hagen in Germany, where both hunter-gatherers and farmers were buried. The team, led by anthropologist Professor Joachim Burger of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany, used stable isotopes to determine their diet, DNA to investigate how they were related, and radiocarbon to establish how old the bones were. "It is commonly assumed that the European hunter-gatherers disappeared soon after the arrival of farmers", said Dr Ruth Bollongino, lead author of the study. "But our study shows that the descendants of the first European humans maintained their hunter-gatherer way of life, and lived in parallel with the immigrant farmers, for at least 2,000 years. The hunter-gathering way of life only died out in Central Europe around 5,000 years ago, much later than previously thought." "Until around 7,500 years ago all central Europeans were hunter-gatherers," said Professor Mark Thomas, professor of evolutionary genetics at UCL, and a co-author of the study. "They were the descendants of the first wave of our species to arrive in Europe, around 45,000 years ago.