The transition pattern of the stone age human life from hunting and gathering to farming was gradual. For millennia, humans hunters coexist with human farmers.
The evidence comes from DNA analysis conducted by researchers from Sweden and Denmark against four human skeleton excavated from a plot of land in Sweden. A framework is a farmer, while the other is a hunter.
Several hundred megalith tombs are known from the Falbygden area, including Gökhem and Valle parishes in Östergötland, Sweden. (Picture from: http://phys.org/) |
Hunter-gatherer skeletons excavated in Sweden, including these remains of a young woman, have provided genetic evidence that these groups mated with nearby farmers who arrived from southern Europe around 5,000 years ago. (Picture from: http://www.sciencenews.org/) |
The skeleton belongs to a young female in her 20s, and can be dated to around 4,700 years ago. (Picture from: http://phys.org/) |
This finding is consistent with the theory of the agricultural revolution in Europe. The theory says the pattern of farming brought about by people who live in the south to north. At that time, humans who live in the north still live by hunting and gathering. Both groups then met this man and lived together for thousands of years.
"They live together with different lifestyles, and do interbreed," says researcher evolutionary biology, Mattias Jakobsson, from Uppsala University.
As a result of intermarriage, the European man living today no longer have the same genetic hunters and gatherers of the stone age human. However, according to Skoglund, several stone age human genetic fragments are stored in the body modern Europeans.
Farmers from the Mediterranean to gain knowledge about agriculture from the first farm in the Middle East about 11 thousand years ago. Agriculture spread throughout Europe about 6,000 years later.
The study was funded by the Danish National Research Council, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science and the Swedish Research Council, as well as by private foundations. *** [AFP | ANTON WILLIAM | KORAN TEMPO 3867]
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