UK’s oldest DNA survey reveals two unknown prehistoric groups

A study Published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution 24 revealed two previously unknown prehistoric human groups. This finding came from an analysis of DNA older than UK. According to the evidence, these two groups migrated to Britain at the end of the last ice age.

The study, carried out by researchers from University College London, the Natural History Museum and the Francis Crick Institute in England, looked at the DNA of an individual found in Goffs Cave in Somerset; Another is from Kendrick Cave in North Wales. According to the Galileo journal, both lived 13,500 years ago.

According to the evidence, genetic material from the Gough Cave fossil indicates that their ancestors were part of an early migration to the Northwest. Europe About 16,000 years ago.

The Kendrick Cave individual is from a later period, about 13,500 years ago. He would have descended from a western hunter-gatherer group that originated in the Near East.

After the ice age

As the researchers pointed out, the migrations happened later ice age. Humans began to return to northern Europe, along with countless environmental and ecological changes as a result of melting ice.

As it points out Sophie Charlton“Significant climate warming, increases in forest size and changes in the types of prey available” would have occurred during that time, the study’s co-author said.

Chemical analysis revealed that the Kendrick Cave people consumed mostly salt and freshwater foods, including large marine mammals. Gough Cave men, on the other hand, fed mainly on terrestrial herbivores such as red deer, bovines, and horses.