A groundbreaking study has overturned previous beliefs by showing that Scandinavia’s first farmers wiped out the indigenous hunter-gatherers through violence and disease 5,900 years ago. A second invasion by the Yamnaya culture 4,850 years ago further shaped the region’s genetic landscape, challenging peaceful transition theories and enhancing our understanding of ancient migrations and genetic heritage.
The study shows, among other things, that there have been two almost total population turnovers in Denmark over the past 7,300 years. The first population change happened 5,900 years ago when a farmer population, with a different origin and appearance, drove out the gatherers, hunters and fishers who had previously populated Scandinavia. Within a few generations, almost the entire hunter-gatherer population was wiped out.
“This time there was also a rapid population turnover, with virtually no descendants from the predecessors. We don’t have as much DNA material from Sweden, but what there is points to a similar course of events. In other words, many Swedes are to a great extent also descendants of these semi-nomads,” says Anne Birgitte Nielsen, who contributed quantitative pollen data that shows how the vegetation changed in connection with the population changes.