Early European Farmers

Genetic studies have confirmed that the later Farmers of Europe generally have also a minor contribution from Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHGs), with significant regional variation.

[4][5][6] In the Balkans, the EEFs appear to have divided into two wings, who expanded further west into Europe along the Danube (Linear Pottery culture) or the western Mediterranean (Cardial Ware).

During the Middle Neolithic there was a largely male-driven resurgence of WHG ancestry among many EEF-derived communities, leading to increasing frequencies of the hunter-gatherer paternal haplogroups among them.

They carried about 80% EEF and 20% WHG ancestry and were found to be closely related to Neolithic peoples of Iberia, which implies that they were descended from agriculturalists who had moved westwards from the Balkans along the Mediterranean coast.

The arrival of farming populations led to the almost complete replacement of the native WHGs of the British Isles, who did not experience a genetic resurgence in the succeeding centuries.

[8] More than 90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool was replaced with the arrival of the Bell Beaker people around 2,500 BC,[9] who had approximately 50% WSH ancestry.

[13][14][15] However, the high frequency of the East Asian mitochondrial haplogroup N9a in Neolithic cultures of the Carpathian Basin was disputed by another study.

[22] EEF ancestry remains widespread throughout Europe, ranging from about 60% near the Mediterranean Sea (with a peak of 65% in the island of Sardinia) and diminishing northwards to about 10% in northern Scandinavia.

[28] The Early European Farmers are believed to have been mostly dark haired and dark eyed, and light skinned,[29][30] with the derived SLC24A5 being fixed in the Anatolia Neolithic,[31] although a genetic study of Ötzi the Iceman, a Chalcolithic mummy of EEF ancestry, found that he had a darker skin tone than contemporary southern Europeans.

[34] EEFs and their Anatolian forebears kept taurine cattle,[35] pigs,[36] sheep, and goats[37] as livestock, and planted cereal crops like wheat.