Archaeologists have discovered that the caves of Serinyàin Pla de l’Estany, they became one climate shelter for the Paleolithic populations before the last glaciation. The discovery was made as part of an international study that analyzed migrations based on individuals who lived some 30,000 years. It has been led by a team of German researchers (from the University of Tübingen and an institute in Leipzig) and Peking University. The results have been published in the magazine Nature. The genome of the remains of 365 prehistoric hunters and gatherers, from fourteen European countries and Central Asia, has been analysed. Of these, UdG archaeologists have provided samples of two that lived in Serinyà 22,000 years ago.
The study published by the prestigious magazine ‘Nature’ has done one genomic analysis large scale of the hunter-gatherer populations that lived in what is now Europe about 30,000 years ago. It is the largest that has been done so far of Paleolithic individuals, with the aim of documenting their migrations and rewriting the history of their ancestors.
The study, which has had the collaboration of 125 international researchers, it has been led by a team from the University of Tübingen (Germany), the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and the Paleolithic Landscape, Peking University and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany). From Girona, researchers from the Laboratory of Archaeology, Ancient History and Prehistory of the UdG took part.
UdG archaeologists have provided samples recovered from the Reclau Viver and Mollet III caves in Serinyà. They belong to two prehistoric individuals who were buried there now about 22,000 years ago. A period known as the late Gravettian, just before the coldest moment of the last glaciation.
In the European context, human remains from this period are very scarce. Therefore, the UdG underlines, “the presence of the samples from Serinyà in this study is essential for the knowledge of the Iberian populations just before the contraction of the European population towards the southern territories of the continent during the Solutrian”. This is the period that follows the Gravettian and is “magnificently represented in the Serinyà sites”, as detailed by the UdG researcher and co-author of the study, Joaquim Soler.
The article published in ‘Nature’ characterizes this folding “as a decisive moment in relation to the genetic diversity of European populations from this moment on,” adds the specialist.
The research also highlights that the different cultural periods that have been identified throughout the Upper Palaeolithic – roughly between 40,000 and 12,000 years ago – do not necessarily coincide with population replacements. In this case, the results provided by the genetic analysis provide elements that make it possible to defend the continuity of populations between the Gravetian and Solutrian periods in Western Europe, for example.
The human remains of Reclau Viver were recovered in 1948 by Josep Maria Corominas, while those of Mollet III were exhumed during the last excavation campaigns as part of the four-year projects awarded by the Department of Culture. The Pla de l’Estany Regional Council and the Banyoles Regional and Archaeological Museum have supported and collaborated in this research. In addition to Joaquim Soler, on behalf of the UdG, the members of the Laboratory of Archaeology, Ancient History and Prehistory Neus Coromina and Isaac Rufí have participated in this research.
Analysis of 356 individuals
In total, the international team analyzed the genome of 356 prehistoric hunter-gatherers from different archaeological cultures, of which 116 are unpublished individuals. The samples come from fourteen European and Central Asian countries. These human groups lived between 35,000 and 5,000 years ago and are the ancestors, at least partially, of today’s European population.
The UdG explains how, “surprisingly”, the scientific team has discovered that the populations associated with the Gravetian culture, which spread across the European continent between 32,000 and 24,000 years ago, were not closely related to each other. According to the results of the study, although they were united by the same archaeological culture (they used the same type of tools and produced similar furniture art), the populations of southwestern Europe – today France, Spain and Portugal – were genetically different from the contemporary populations of Central Europe and Southern Europe – currently the Czech Republic and Italy.
The hunter-gatherers of southwestern Europe showed genetic continuity over the past 20,000 years: their descendants remained in this region of Europe during the coldest period of the last glaciation and then expanded into the rest of Europe. “Thanks to these findings, for the first time, we can support the hypothesis that southwestern Europe offered more favorable climatic conditions during the coldest phase of the last glaciation and human groups found their refuge here,” according to the first author of the study, Cosimo Posth (of the University of Tübingen).