The transition to agriculture and a sedentary lifestyle is one of the great turning points in human history. Yet how this Neolithic way of life spread from the Fertile Crescent across Anatolia and into the Aegean has been hotly debated. A Turkish-Swiss team offers important new insights, by combining archaeology and genetics in an innovative way.
How open are people to experimenting with new ways of life? Did farming spread from its origins in Anatolia to neighboring regions by farmers migrating? Or was it rather local hunter-gatherers adopting their neighbors' ways of life? A new study, published in Science, now reconciles these opposing views. The authors find that this massive cultural change occurred through both phenomena – depending on the region and the period.
The research, led by geneticists and archaeologists at Middle East Technical University (METU) and Hacettepe University in Ankara (Turkey), and the University of Lausanne (UNIL, Switzerland), sheds light on a major turning point in human history. The team's work shows that cultural changes took place not only due to the movement of people, but also through spread of ideas. "In some regions of West Anatolia, we see the first transitions to village life nearly 10,000 years ago. However, we also observe thousands of years of genetic continuity, which means that populations did not migrate or mix massively, even though cultural transition was definitely happening," explains Dilek Koptekin, the study's first author.
A missing chapter in the Neolithic story
Previous research had already shown how agriculture gradually replaced hunting and gathering in Europe after 6,000 BCE, through the movement of farmers out of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). But what happened before this tipping point, especially in Anatolia, remained unclear. "Our study allows us to go back in time – to events that were mainly a matter of speculation up to now," says Koptekin.
This advancement was possible by sequencing the genome of a 9,000-year-old individual from West Anatolia, the oldest yet in the region. Combining this genome with 29 new paleogenomes as well as published data, the researchers found surprising genetic continuity in West Anatolia across seven millennia. "Genetically speaking, these people were mainly locals, meaning that their ancestors had not recently arrived from elsewhere. Yet their material culture evolved rapidly: they moved from caves to houses, and adopted new tools and rituals from afar. This suggests that these communities adopted Neolithic practices by cultural exchange rather than population replacement," says computational biologist Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas from UNIL .
How exactly did that happen? "The answer lies in what we call 'background mobility'," explains geneticist Mehmet Somel from METU . "This means a low but steady movement of individuals around different regions, perhaps linked to exchange, finding partners, or other motivations. These encounters then led to the sharing of material and ideas." Such movement is illustrated by traces of obsidian, a volcanic glass used for tools, found in western Anatolia but sourced from central Anatolian volcanoes hundreds of kilometers away. Materials, and with them ideas, were apparently on the move.
Ideas move further than people
Seeking deeper insights into this mobility, the team used an innovative approach, combining ancient DNA with archaeological material data. The researchers scoured hundreds of articles and quantified archaeological features such as pottery types, tools, and architectural remains. This allowed them to systematically compare materials with the genetic profiles of individuals buried at the same sites. "By giving quantitative values to the archaeological data, we were able to directly compare large amounts of data across different sites for the first time," specifies archaeologist Çiğdem Atakuman from METU. The team thereby traced not only who moved where, but also how ideas and practices circulated.
The scientists' findings challenge previous assumptions that new tools or objects necessarily indicate the arrival of a new population. "Archaeologists have this proverb, 'Pots don't equal people'. Our study confirms this notion," comments Dilek Koptekin.
An evolving mosaic
But this is not the whole story. In some areas of Anatolia, genetic data revealed both mobility and admixture of populations around 7,000 BCE. Here, new groups moved in, bringing both different genes and different practices. In the Aegean region, too, a later wave of population movement introduced further cultural elements that would eventually spread into Europe.
"These types of migration events, which leave genetically visible shifts, probably comprised a small fraction of movement happening compared to background mobility," says Füsun Özer from Hacettepe University . "The Neolithic, in this view, was not a single process, but a patchwork of transformations, combining cultural adoption, mobility, and at times, migration." Koptekin adds, "Humans have always been adaptive and inclined to change their way of living. We don't need crises or big migration events to bring about change."
Conceptualized and led primarily by researchers based in Turkey, the study underscores the importance of supporting research in regions directly connected to the questions under investigation. For Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, it is a valuable example of how extending large-scale funding opportunities beyond established scientific hubs strengthens underrepresented research communities. "Our collaboration shows how we, as a scientific community, should move forward to create a more inclusive and globally balanced research landscape," concludes the biologist.
The methodological leap achieved in this study, integrating genomic and archaeological data at large scale for the first time, marks a turning point for prehistoric research. It allows future research to move beyond simple models and embrace more complex realities of human history.
