Europe during the Ice Age. The University of Tübingen presents the results of a project leading to the publication of an article co-authored by Professor Dan Grigorescu, Scientific Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization, published in the journal Nature

The prestigious journal “Nature” has recently published an article discussing the genetic lineage of modern humans over the last 45,000 years in Europe – “Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers” – whose authors include Professor Dan Grigorescu, Scientific Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization. The results of the project that led to the publication of this scientific paper, whose principal author is Professor Cosimo Posth, were presented to the general public by the University of Tübingen in a press release.

“This is the largest database of prehistoric genomic data obtained from hunter-gatherers in Europe,” claimed paleogeneticist Cosimo Posth with reference to genomic data obtained from 356 hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe from 35,000 to 5,000 years ago, a period that included the coldest interval of the last Ice Age which occurred 25,000 to 19,000 years ago.

“During the coldest period of the Ice Age, known as the ‘Last Glacial Maximum,’ ice sheets called continental glaciers covered half of Europe, with the rest of the continent having tundra-like conditions with a frozen subsoil. The only people to survive Europe’s worst period were hunter-gatherers who took refuge in parts of France and the Iberian Peninsula. The Italian peninsula, previously thought to have been a haven for humans during that period, turned out to be just the opposite - all its inhabitants perished. The region was repopulated roughly 19,000 years ago by hunter-gatherers from the Balkans, who then spread throughout Europe and, about 14,500 years ago, supplanted all the people who lived on the continent,” the authors of the study said in a statement released by the University of Tübingen.

This was not the first collaboration between Professors Dan Grigorescu and Cosimo Posth. In 2016, “Nature” published an article titled “The genetic history of the Ice Age in Europe” also authored by the two, with Cosimo Posth as principal author. At the initiative of Professor Grigorescu, a collaboration agreement was ratified between the University of Tübingen and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Levant Culture and Civilization in 2021, as part of a project focusing on the genetic sequencing of the ancient inhabitants of Romania coordinated by Professor Cosimo Posth. The collaboration for the “Ancient human and pathogen genomics across the Roman Empire” project will run for three years, bringing together institutions from as far afield as Italy, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Germany.

Further information is available here.

No Comments Yet.

Leave a comment