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Herodotus tells us of the Scythians, who ravaged the Middle East and Europe. The Romans later defeated Sarmatians on the plains of Pannonia. Even further back in history we know of the Indo-Aryan Mittani in Syria, while there are hints of a relationship between nomadic societies on the steppe of Eurasia and later settled populations in Eastern Europe, Iran & India. Because of the lack of literacy in most of the world before 500 B.C. we must rely on archaeology to connect the vaguest of these dots... Standard physical anthropological methods did yield results which suggested that populations of European...

Not just metals, hierarchical societies and fortified settlements: a new food also influenced economic transformations in the Bronze Age around 3,500 years ago. This is evidenced by frequent archeological discoveries of remains of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.), a cereal with small, roundish grains. A major study by the Collaborative Research Center 1266 at Kiel University (CAU) was published yesterday (13 August) in the journal Scientific Reports. It shows how common millet got onto the menu in Bronze Age Europe. Intensive trade and communication networks facilitated the incredibly rapid spread of this new crop originating from the Far East. "Wheat,...

Since their discovery, the ancestry of hundreds of mummified bodies buried in boats in an inhospitable desert region of northwest China has puzzled and divided archaeologists.Found in the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang mostly in the 1990s, the mummies' bodies and clothes are strikingly intact despite being up to 4,000 years old. Naturally preserved by the dry desert air, their facial features and hair color can clearly be seen.Their Western looks; felted and woven wool clothing; and the cheese, wheat and millet found in their unusual graves suggested they were long-disticance herders from the West Asia steppe or migrating farmers from...

The Slovak Spectator reports that a 5,000-year-old skeleton has been unearthed in eastern Slovakia by researchers from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences. The skeleton belonged to a young man of the Indo-European Pit Grave culture who died between the ages of 16 and 18. The grave was found in the center of a burial mound with a 72-foot diameter, surrounded by a channel measuring more than 12 feet wide. The remains of a charred wooden structure that once covered the grave pit were also identified, said Eva Horváthová of the Slovak Academy of Sciences....

For traditional Basques the pictures, symbols and words found scraped onto pieces of third century pottery dug up near the town of Nanclares, in northern Spain, included miraculous evidence that their unique language of Euskara was far older than ever thought. Eighteen months ago the dig's director, Eliseo Gil, claimed that some finds at the Roman town known as Veleia were on par with those at Pompeii or Rome itself. Basque nationalists bristled with pride... Now a committee of experts has revealed those jewels to be fakes... The hunt is on for an archeological fraudster who defaced fragments of third...

Genetic testing reveals awkward truth about Xinjiang’s famous mummies (AFP) 19 April 2005 URUMQI, China - After years of controversy and political intrigue, archaeologists using genetic testing have proven that Caucasians roamed China’s Tarim Basin 1,000 years before East Asian people arrived. The research, which the Chinese government has appeared to have delayed making public out of concerns of fueling Uighur Muslim separatism in its western-most Xinjiang region, is based on a cache of ancient dried-out corpses that have been found around the Tarim Basin in recent decades. “It is unfortunate that the issue has been so politicized because it...

The genetic profiles of people associated with Funnelbeaker and Globular Amphora cultures show evidence of being recent migrants to the region. This finding shows that the period between arrival of agriculture and "steppe"-related ancestry, hitherto thought of as an uneventful period, was more dynamic than previously hypothesised......Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (~6,000-3,700 years ago)...Individuals associated with the Corded Ware culture expanded from Eastern Europe and then assimilated preferentially central European women into their culture, giving them the same burial ritual as members of the immigrating group...Once established, individuals of the Corded Ware culture (4,900-4,400 years ago) changed genetically through...

The remains of a group of people who died 6200 years ago in a massacre in Croatia have been genetically analysed to reveal their ages, sex and ancestry.Mario Novak at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, Croatia, and his colleagues retrieved DNA from 38 of 41 individuals found in a mass grave in Potočani, Croatia. The other three remains didn’t contain enough genetic material to sequence...“There are at least 41 individuals of both sexes and almost all age groups – the youngest is about 2 years old and the oldest is about 50,” says Novak. Radiocarbon dating of each...

...Prof. Haak will also try to detect more plague DNA in hundreds of skeletons from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. So far, DNA evidence from a dozen skeletons points to little variability between the strains of Yersinia pestis in such remains, suggesting that the pestilence spread rapidly across the continent. The speed may owe to another human advance at this time -- the domestication of wild horses, which may literally have carried the disease into Europe. "We see the change from wild local horses to domesticated horses, which happened rapidly at the beginning of the Bronze Age," said...

The first modern Britons, who lived about 10,000 years ago, had “dark to black” skin, a groundbreaking DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest complete skeleton has revealed. The fossil, known as Cheddar Man, was unearthed more than a century ago in Gough’s Cave in Somerset. Intense speculation has built up around Cheddar Man’s origins and appearance because he lived shortly after the first settlers crossed from continental Europe to Britain at the end of the last ice age. People of white British ancestry alive today are descendants of this population. It was initially assumed that Cheddar Man had pale skin and...

Geneticists from the University of Leicester have discovered that most European men descend from just a handful of Bronze Age forefathers, due to a 'population explosion' several thousand years ago. The project, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, was led by Professor Mark Jobling from the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics and the study is published in the journal Nature Communications. The research team determined the DNA sequences of a large part of the Y chromosome, passed exclusively from fathers to sons, in 334 men from 17 European and Middle Eastern populations. This research used new methods for...

A DNA study of Britons has shown that genetically there is not a unique Celtic group of people in the UK. According to the data, those of Celtic ancestry in Scotland and Cornwall are more similar to the English than they are to other Celtic groups. The study also describes distinct genetic differences across the UK, which reflect regional identities. And it shows that the invading Anglo Saxons did not wipe out the Britons of 1,500 years ago, but mixed with them. Published in the Journal Nature, the findings emerge from a detailed DNA analysis of 2,000 mostly middle-aged Caucasian...

The blood in Irish veins is Celtic, right? Well, not exactly. Although the history many Irish people were taught at school is the history of the Irish as a Celtic race, the truth is much more complicated, and much more interesting than that ... Research done into the DNA of Irish males has shown that the old Anthropological attempts to define 'Irish' have been misguided. As late as the 1950s researchers were busy collecting data among Irish people such as hair colour and height, in order to categorise them as a 'race' and define them as different to the British....

By comparing DNA from ancient bone specimens to DNA obtained from modern animals, the researchers discovered that the Kerry red deer are the direct descendants of deer present in Ireland 5000 years ago. Further analysis using DNA from European deer proves that Neolithic people from Britain first brought the species to Ireland. Although proving the red deer is not native to Ireland, researchers believe that the Kerry population is unique as it is directly related to the original herd and are worthy of special conservation status. Fossil bone samples from the National Museum of Ireland, some up to 30,000 years...

Research led by the University of Leeds has discovered genetic evidence that overturns existing theories about human migration into Island Southeast Asia (covering the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo) - taking the timeline back by nearly 10,000 years. Prevailing theory suggests that the present-day populations of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) originate largely from a Neolithic expansion from Taiwan driven by rice agriculture about 4,000 years ago - the so-called "Out of Taiwan" model. However an international research team, led by the UK’s first Professor of Archaeogenetics, Martin Richards, has shown that a substantial fraction of their mitochondrial DNA lineages (inherited...

To see the DNA results of some of the ancient people click here. You'll have to scan around to find this exact page but it contains many links of interest. A compilation of DNA haplotypes extracted from ancient remains Cheddar ManIn 1903, skeletal remains were found in a cave in Cheddar, England. The remains of a 23 year-old man, who was killed by a blow to the face, were discovered to be at least 9,000 years old. Ninety-four years after the discovery of "Cheddar Man", scientists were able to extract mitochondrial DNA from his tooth cavity. Name Haplo Haplotype Cheddar...

Irish, Scots and Welsh not Celts - scientists September 09 2004 at 08:15PM Dublin - Celtic nations like Ireland and Scotland have more in common with the Portuguese and Spanish than with "Celts" - the name commonly used for a group of people from ancient Alpine Europe, scientists say. "There is a received wisdom that the origin of the people of these islands lie in invasions or migrations... but the affinities don't point eastwards to a shared origin," said Daniel Bradley, co-author of a genetic study into Celtic origins. Early historians believed the Celts - thought to have come from...

Y chromosomes rewrite British historyAnglo-Saxons' genetic stamp weaker than historians suspected 19 June 2003 HANNAH HOAG Some Scottish men's Y's are remarkably similar to those of southern England. © GettyImages A new survey of Y chromosomes in the British Isles suggests that the Anglo-Saxons failed to leave as much of a genetic stamp on the UK as history books imply1. Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Vikings and Normans invaded Britain repeatedly between 50 BC and AD 1050. Many historians ascribe much of the British ancestry to the Anglo-Saxons because their written legacy overshadows that of the Celts. But the Y chromosomes of...

SUNDAY DECEMBER 02 2001 Genetic survey reveals hidden Celts of England JOHN ELLIOTT AND TOM ROBBINS THE Celts of Scotland and Wales are not as unique as some of them like to think. New research has revealed that the majority of Britons living in the south of England share the same DNA as their Celtic counterparts. The findings, based on the DNA analysis of more than 2,000 people, poses the strongest challenge yet to the conventional historical view that the ancient Britons were forced out of most of England by hordes of Anglo-Saxon invaders. It suggests that far from being ...

Scientists have uncovered evidence for a large-scale, prehistoric migration into Britain that may be linked to the spread of Celtic languages. The mass-movement of people originated in continental Europe and occurred between 1,400 BC and 870 BC. The discovery helps to explain the genetic make-up of many present-day people in Britain. Around half the ancestry of later populations in England and Wales comes from these migrants. ...When the newcomers arrived, the existing British population traced most of its ancestry to people who arrived at the end of the Neolithic, around the time Stonehenge was being built. They were part of...