{"id":941824,"date":"2026-05-06T15:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941824\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T15:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:45:15","slug":"stone-age-mystery-dna-reveals-ancient-population-wipeout-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/941824\/","title":{"rendered":"Stone Age Mystery: DNA Reveals Ancient Population Wipeout in France"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"La<\/a>The Dolmen de la Roche-aux-F\u00e9es in Brittany is a Neolithic burial monument typical of early farming communities. DNA analyses of skeletons from similar sites in France have uncovered traces of multiple ancient diseases, shedding light on health and mortality in prehistoric populations. Credit: Shutterstock<\/p>\n

A genetic study of a prehistoric burial site near Paris reveals a sharp break between two populations, suggesting a major decline followed by the arrival of new groups from distant regions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An international team led by the University of Copenhagen<\/a> has uncovered evidence that one of France\u2019s largest Stone Age burial sites records a dramatic population collapse followed by the arrival of new groups from southern Europe. The discovery reshapes understanding of the so-called \u201cNeolithic decline,\u201d a period when populations across much of northern Europe dropped sharply.<\/p>\n

The study, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, is based on DNA from 132 individuals buried in a large megalithic tomb near Bury, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Paris. The site was used during two separate phases, divided by a major population decline around 3000 BC.<\/p>\n

Genetic results show that individuals buried before and after this decline were not related, indicating a near-complete population replacement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see a clear genetic break between the two periods,\u201d said Frederik Valeur Seersholm, assistant professor at the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen and one of the study\u2019s lead authors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe earlier group resembles Stone Age farming populations from northern France and Germany, while the later group shows strong genetic links to southern France and the Iberian Peninsula.\u201d<\/p>\n

Together, the findings point to a steep drop in the local population, followed by migration from the south.<\/p>\n

Disease and High Mortality<\/p>\n

Using a method that examines all genetic material preserved in bone, the team identified traces of ancient pathogens. These included the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis and louse-borne relapsing fever caused by Borrelia recurrentis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can confirm that plague was present, but the evidence does not support it as the sole cause of the population collapse,\u201d said Martin Sikora, associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and senior author of the study. \u201cThe decline was likely driven by a combination of disease, environmental stress, and other disruptive events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skeletal analysis also revealed unusually high death rates during the earlier burial phase, especially among children and adolescents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe demographic pattern is a strong indicator of crisis,\u201d said Laure Salanova, research director at France\u2019s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).<\/p>\n

Shift in social organization<\/p>\n

The genetic data also point to a shift in how these communities were organized.<\/p>\n

During the earlier phase, multiple generations of extended families were buried together, suggesting close-knit groups. In the later phase, burials became more selective and were dominated by a single male lineage, indicating a different social structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis indicates that the population change was accompanied by a shift in how society was structured,\u201d Seersholm said.<\/p>\n

A wider European pattern<\/p>\n

The results add to growing evidence that the Neolithic decline affected large parts of northern and western Europe, not just Scandinavia and northern Germany.<\/p>\n

They may also help explain why the construction of megalithic tombs and other large stone monuments ended across Europe at roughly the same time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now see that end of these monumental constructions coincides with the disappearance of the population that built them,\u201d Seersholm said.<\/p>\n

Reference: \u201cMapping convergent regulators of melanoma drug resistance by PerturbFate\u201d by Zihan Xu, Ziyu Lu, Aileen Ugurbil, Abdulraouf Abdulraouf, Andrew Liao, Jianxiang Zhang, Wei Zhou and Junyue Cao, 15 April 2026, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038\/s41586-026-10367-0<\/a><\/p>\n

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Follow us on Google<\/a> and Google News<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dolmen de la Roche-aux-F\u00e9es in Brittany is a Neolithic burial monument typical of early farming communities. DNA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[55430,2397,3908,2000,299,36,267,137783],"class_list":{"0":"post-941824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-anthropology","9":"tag-archaeology","10":"tag-dna","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-genetics","15":"tag-university-of-copenhagen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116528410092393534","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}