A woman\u2019s DNA from southwestern France reveals ancestry connections between eastern and western European populations more than 30,000 years ago.Human nuclear DNA recovered from cave sediment adds evidence that western European ancestry survived through the Last Glacial Maximum.The findings show that regional continuity and distant genetic exchange could coexist, although migration routes and the exact source populations remain uncertain.<\/p>\n
A woman who lived near the Pyrenees around 30,000 years ago carried evidence of connections reaching far beyond her region. Most of her ancestry resembled that of western European hunter-gatherers. Another component linked her to populations associated with central and eastern Europe, revealing a more connected Ice Age landscape than earlier genetic evidence suggested.<\/p>\n
An international team led by the University of Vienna<\/a> reported the findings in Science Advances<\/a>. Researchers combined new genetic data from three people with previously published genomes and human DNA recovered from Spanish cave sediment. Together, those sources show that long-distance genetic exchange could occur without replacing a region\u2019s existing population ancestry.<\/p>\n The study concerns people associated with the Gravettian, an archaeological culture widespread across Europe roughly 34,000 to 25,000 years ago. Similar tools, artworks and burial practices had already suggested extensive contacts. The new evidence helps connect that cultural picture with the biological histories of people who lived through the period.<\/p>\n Cave of Isturitz, the cavity in which the bone of a Gravettian woman was found. (CREDIT: Severine Dabadie) A woman\u2019s ancestry crosses an apparent divide<\/p>\n Earlier genomic studies identified two broad ancestry groups among Gravettian populations. One, called Fournol, predominated in western and southwestern Europe. The other, named V\u011bstonice, included people from central Europe and Italy, despite cultural similarities across their territories.<\/p>\n Those groupings never meant complete separation. Previous work had found mixed ancestry<\/a> in later Gravettian individuals from Goyet Cave in Belgium. However, evidence for comparable connections farther southwest remained limited, partly because suitable human remains are scarce.<\/p>\n The newly studied woman came from Isturitz Cave in southwestern France. Her remains yielded what the researchers describe as southwestern Europe\u2019s oldest genome-wide dataset from a modern human. The team recovered information at more than 454,000 variable positions in her DNA, providing a substantial basis for ancestry comparisons.<\/p>\n Genetic models placed her mainly within the western ancestry group, with an additional contribution related to ancestors of the V\u011bstonice group. Reanalysis of a previously studied individual from Ormesson, France, revealed another mixed-ancestry signal. These results extend evidence of east-west connections beyond the pattern previously documented in Belgium.<\/p>\n Connections do not reveal a single journey<\/p>\n \u201cOur results show that eastern and western European populations<\/a> were not as genetically isolated as previously assumed,\u201d said first author Pere Gelabert, of Vienna\u2019s Department of Evolutionary Anthropology. \u201cGene flow across such large distances adds a new dimension to our understanding of how Gravettian populations were connected.\u201d The finding concerns inherited ancestry, rather than proof that the Isturitz woman herself traveled across Europe.<\/p>\n Genomic data from four new individuals from Gravettian and Solutrean cultures. (A) Location of the sampled individuals and estimated dates. (CREDIT: Ron Pinhasi et al, Science Advances 2026) <\/p>\n The team estimated that the mixing represented in her genome occurred around 32,500 to 31,500 years ago. That calculation assumes a single pulse of gene flow. The comparable estimate for Ormesson did not reach statistical significance, so it provides less secure evidence for the timing.<\/p>\n Researchers also considered an alternative explanation for the eastern-related ancestry. It might reflect a deeper ancestral component already present in some western populations<\/a> before the Gravettian. Missing genomic data from earlier southwestern Europeans prevent the team from fully resolving that possibility.<\/p>\n Isturitz nevertheless offers an intriguing archaeological setting for encounters. Its rich portable artworks and position near the western end of the Pyrenees support longstanding interpretations of the cave as a gathering place. Different groups may have exchanged goods, information and partners there, although the genome cannot reconstruct particular meetings or migration routes.<\/p>\n Finding human ancestry without human bones<\/p>\n The researchers also examined an adult woman\u2019s tooth from Chuf\u00edn Cave in northern Spain. Its degraded DNA<\/a> yielded far fewer usable markers than the Isturitz remains. Even so, the results supported the presence of western-related ancestry in the region around 26,000 years ago.<\/p>\n At El Mir\u00f3n Cave in Cantabria, the team turned to sediment from a layer dated to roughly 22,000 years ago. No human bones or teeth were needed from that layer. Instead, researchers recovered traces of human nuclear DNA, which contains ancestry information inherited from both parents.<\/p>\n Multidimensional scaling (MDS) plot of ancient human data from the Late Pleistocene. (CREDIT: Ron Pinhasi et al, Science Advances 2026) <\/p>\n Earlier sediment work at the cave had recovered mitochondrial DNA, which traces maternal inheritance. Nuclear DNA supplies many more positions across the genome for comparing populations and detecting ancestry relationships. For both the sediment and the degraded Chuf\u00edn sample, the researchers restricted analysis to molecules showing characteristic ancient DNA damage to reduce interference from modern contamination. These precautions cannot make a low-coverage environmental sample equivalent to a well-preserved skeleton, but they help separate an authentic ancient signal from DNA introduced much later.<\/p>\n Obtaining usable information required extensive sequencing and strict filtering. More than a billion sequencing reads ultimately yielded 14,737 selected genetic markers for the ancestry analysis. The sediment contained DNA from multiple people, so the result represents a mixed environmental sample rather than one person\u2019s reconstructed genome<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSedimentary DNA allows us to recover genetic information from periods where human remains are missing,\u201d said senior author Ron Pinhasi, also of Vienna\u2019s Department of Evolutionary Anthropology. \u201cThis gives us a way to connect archaeological layers with the genetic ancestry of the people who occupied a site.\u201d The method expands the record while introducing challenges involving contamination and mixtures of DNA.<\/p>\n Surviving an Ice Age without standing still<\/p>\n The El Mir\u00f3n sample resembled other western European ancestry profiles. Combined with skeletal genomes and earlier research, it supports regional ancestry continuity from before 30,000 years ago into the Last Glacial Maximum. That severely cold interval made southern refuges particularly important for understanding European population history.<\/p>\n