Entire Human Populations Vanished 3,000 Years Ago. Scientists Figured Out Where They Went.

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When you read this story you will learn:

• There is a new scientific explanation for the famous neolithic collapse that occurred in northern Europe around 3100 BC.

• A marked population decline in multiple regions opened the door for outsiders to resettle with new demographics and cultures.

• The influx of newcomers came from the south, as Iberians began to resettle the Paris Basin around 2900 BC.

A strange gap in the content of a 5,000-year-old document megalithic A tomb outside Paris could explain not only a widespread neolithic population decline, but also those who stepped in to repopulate the Paris Basin. Located about 30 miles north of Paris, the Bury tomb is a stone funerary monument containing the remains of 300 people. Using a combination of DNA and demographic characteristics, researchers investigating the tomb determined that the Paris Basin dates back to B.C. They believe they have found out why it underwent a dramatic population shift around 3100 BC and who entered the region to replace them.

In a new study It was published in the magazine Nature Ecology and Evolution, An international team of researchers links the stone age site in the Paris region to a massive continent-wide demographic crisis. Before the mysterious population decline, megalithic Tomb construction has defined the vast area for over 1000 years. While each region brought its own cultural touches to funerary construction, burials at Bury were consistent and communal, housing tens of thousands of burials over the centuries. In the Paris Basin, as in central Germany and southern Scandinavia, such graves were found in particularly high concentrations.

According to new research, the construction of these tombs dates back to B.C. “It came to a sudden halt on the northwestern European continent” at the end of the fourth millennium BC. The break in the thousand-year-old burial tradition occurred everywhere, and until now the reason was unknown.

Investigation of the Bury megalith has revealed that it represents two distinct burial stages; the first was roughly between 3200 and 3100 BC, and the second began around 2900 BC. Neolithic It’s a decline that researchers don’t fully understand but that has contributed to the complete rebuilding of populations in the region.

Analyzing DNA evidence from 132 people found in Bury, the team discovered that the two distinct historical phases were unrelated. Stage one individuals had genetic diversity that extended well beyond the Paris Basin, based on continental farming populations. second stage gravesOn the other hand, the traces of more than 80 percent of the group’s ancestors were much more homogeneous. Neolithic Iberia (now Spain and Southern France).

While phase one burials included multi-generational families and evidence of women marrying outside within the community, phase two burials involved smaller families and unrelated individuals buried side by side. The apparent divergence of Y chromosome lineages in the second stage was a dramatic population change, not a gradual cultural change.

This turnover, paired with pollen data (showing that forests regrew during the gap) and the change in agricultural practices after the gap, indicates that grazing areas and fields were abandoned, implying that settlements were vacant. Pattern matching the aftermath of the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death.

The authors argue that the decline in 3100 BC was geographically widespread, creating a demographic gap in northwestern Europe and opening the door for neighboring communities to fill this gap. In Scandinavia, steppe shepherds completely replaced local farmers. In the Paris Basin, Iberian farmers moved into what were then vacant areas.

“Thus, we can consider the possibility that both the Iberian northward migration and the expansion from the steppe were responses to Neolithic decline, because widespread demographic contraction would have created a gap into which neighboring groups could expand,” the authors write.

The first community that defined the Paris Basin was essentially wiped out, but clues as to what caused the wipeout were found in the Bury tomb. Researchers discovered ancient pathogens in the remains, including plague and lice-borne relapsing fever. Experts believe that infectious diseases, environmental stress, and demographic contraction are leading to widespread demographic collapse. “These findings detail population change at the end of the 4th millennium BC,” they wrote, “and offer a possible explanation for the cessation of megalith construction.”

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