DNA study reveals secrets of migrations across Europe 2000 years ago
Share:
Most of the migrations involved people speaking three main branches of Germanic languages. Scientists have unveiled a detailed snapshot of human migrations in Europe during the first millennium AD by employing a more precise method of analysing ancestry through ancient DNA.
Documenting migrations by analysing changes in DNA has proven difficult due to the presence of historical groups of genetically similar people. For the latest study, however, researchers employed a new method of analysis to over 1,500 European genomes from the first millennium AD, spanning the Iron Age, the fall of the Roman Empire, the early medieval “Migration Period” and the Viking Age.
The new method of measuring DNA changes allowed researchers from the Francis Crick Institute in the US to differentiate even genetically very similar groups. The study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, revealed previously unknown migrations. It showed waves of Romans migrating south from northern Germany or Scandinavia early in the first millennium, providing genetic evidence to back existing historical records of this movement.
The research identified Roman ancestry in individuals from southern Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and southern Britain, with one person in southern Europe exhibiting 100 per cent Scandinavian-like ancestry. Many of these groups eventually mixed with older populations, the researchers said.
