{"id":524747,"date":"2026-04-11T06:59:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T06:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/524747\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T06:59:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T06:59:16","slug":"ancient-dna-reveals-major-population-replacement-in-france-5000-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/524747\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient DNA Reveals Major Population Replacement in France 5,000 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Megalithic<\/p>\n

Ancient DNA from a Paris burial site confirms a population replacement in France. Image: Megalithic site in Carnac, France. Credit: Nicolas Raymond<\/a> \/ Flickr CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n

A new study of ancient human remains<\/a> from a burial site near Paris has found that a dramatic population replacement in France unfolded around 5,000 years ago. A new group from the Iberian Peninsula moved northward and largely displaced the region\u2019s existing Neolithic communities.<\/p>\n

The findings, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution<\/a>, offer a detailed look at one of European prehistory\u2019s least understood turning points.<\/p>\n

Researchers led by Frederik V. Seersholm of the University of Copenhagen analyzed 132 ancient genomes from a megalithic burial site called Bury, located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Paris.<\/p>\n

The site contains two distinct burial phases separated by a gap in activity. This made it a rare window into how the local population changed over centuries.<\/p>\n

Population replacement began in France before Bell Beakers<\/p>\n

The first burial phase ended around 3000 BC and belonged to a genetically diverse group with mixed ancestry. Some individuals even carried traces of hunter-gatherer DNA. The second phase, running through much of the third millennium BC, told a completely different story.<\/p>\n

More than 80 percent of the ancestry in Phase 2 individuals traced back to Neolithic Iberia<\/a>. This pushed back the timeline of major genetic replacement in France by several centuries, predating the well-known Bell Beaker cultural expansion.<\/p>\n

\"Bell<\/p>\n

Bell Beaker burial. Credit: TobyEditor \/ Wikimedia Commons \/ CC BY 4.0<\/p>\n

The two groups also organized themselves very differently. Phase 1 burials reflected large, extended family networks spanning up to five generations.<\/p>\n

One striking example involved three brothers, one of whom was found seated in a corner of the grave with three axe wounds to the skull. He was surrounded by children in what researchers believe may have been the founding deposit of the monument.<\/p>\n

Phase 2, by contrast, featured smaller patrilineal family lines and a much higher proportion of unrelated individuals.<\/p>\n

Axe wounds and pedigrees reveal a stark social divide between phases<\/p>\n

Both phases showed a notable male bias, with roughly 71 to 73 percent of individuals being male. Researchers concluded that women were largely buried<\/a> elsewhere, pointing to a practice of female exogamy in these communities.<\/p>\n

Researchers also found evidence of infectious disease in the remains. The plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, appeared in four individuals across both phases.<\/p>\n

\"Neolithic<\/p>\n

Neolithic pottery from the cave. Credit: Zde \/ CC BY-SA 4.0 \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

They also detected Borrelia recurrentis, which causes louse-borne relapsing fever with an untreated death rate between 15 and 40 percent. Strontium isotope data further indicated that the Phase 2 population lived a more settled lifestyle than earlier groups in the area.<\/p>\n

Plague and pollen records paint a picture of civilizational collapse<\/p>\n

Pollen records from the Paris Basin, along with similar data from Scandinavia, Denmark, and Germany, showed clear forest regrowth between the two phases. This signaled a widespread abandonment of fields and settlements across the region.<\/p>\n

Researchers concluded that disease, environmental strain, and demographic pressure combined to collapse the original farming communities, ultimately creating conditions for a new population to move in and reshape the region entirely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ancient DNA from a Paris burial site confirms a population replacement in France. Image: Megalithic site in Carnac,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[20785,182184,59,182185,182186,182187,182188,182189,90,56,54,55,182190],"class_list":["post-524747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ancient-dna","tag-european-prehistory","tag-gb","tag-iberian-migration","tag-megalithic-tombs","tag-neolithic-decline","tag-paris-basin","tag-population-replacement","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-yersinia-pestis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}