Rosa Rubicondior: Refuting Creationism - Origin Of Western Europeans - Thousand Of Years Before The Mythical Flood

Map indicating hunter-gatherer ancestry proportions across Europe 4500–2500 BCE. Darker is more.

New research into ancient DNA sheds light on key phase in European prehistory - University of Huddersfield

This second post on discoveries made by international teams of palaeontologists and geneticists, including scientists from the University of Huddersfield’s Archaeogenetics Research Group, examines the genetic evidence for the ancestry of modern western Europeans. As so often happens in research into human origins and archaeology, the findings are not what creationists keep hoping for: not a scrap of evidence that the creation myths in the Bible contain even a grain of historical truth. Instead, the team’s findings, published in Nature, add yet more evidence for a deep, complex and thoroughly non-biblical human past.

As usual, the evidence sits squarely at odds with those childish fairy tales of magical creation and a recent global population reset caused by a genocidal flood. The study shows that farming practices were reaching parts of western Europe long before biblical chronology allows for such events, and that there is no sign of the extreme genetic bottleneck such a story would require. On the contrary, both the archaeological and genetic evidence point to continuity across the period, with farming introduced unevenly into the region and with women of Early European Farmer ancestry from the Near East marrying into local hunter-gatherer communities.

Nor are these findings any comfort to far-right white supremacists who fantasise about Europeans as some sort of ancient “pure race”. Research led by scientists including Dr Maria Pala, Professor Martin B. Richards and Dr Ceiridwen J. Edwards of the University of Huddersfield shows that modern Europeans carry ancestry from multiple distinct populations: indigenous hunter-gatherers, Neolithic farmers ultimately derived from the Near East, and later pastoralist groups associated with the Eurasian steppe. In other words, the population history of Europe is one of movement, mixture and cultural exchange, not racial purity.

The team also found that the hunter-gatherer way of life persisted in what are now Belgium and the Netherlands for thousands of years longer than in most other parts of Europe. Rather than being rapidly replaced, these communities retained high levels of hunter-gatherer ancestry well into the Neolithic, apparently because the wetland, riverine and coastal environments allowed them to adopt some farming practices without abandoning their existing lifeways.

Background^ The Three Main Ancestral Strands in Modern Western Europeans. Ancient DNA has shown that the ancestry of modern western Europeans is not derived from a single ancient “race” or isolated founding population, but from the mixing of three broad prehistoric population groups over many thousands of years. These are usually described as western hunter-gatherers, Early European Farmers, and later steppe pastoralists. The balance between them varies from place to place, but together they form the main ancestral framework for much of western Europe today. [1]

Western hunter-gatherers
These were the descendants of the Mesolithic people who lived across Europe after the last Ice Age, surviving by hunting, fishing and gathering wild foods. They were the indigenous inhabitants of Europe before farming arrived. In most parts of Europe, their genetic signature was greatly reduced when farming populations spread westwards, but it did not vanish. In some regions, especially the wetlands of the Lower Rhine-Meuse area, hunter-gatherer ancestry persisted for much longer than elsewhere. [1]
Early European Farmers
These were the descendants of early farming populations ultimately derived from western Anatolia and the Near East. As farming spread into Europe between about 6500 and 4000 BCE, these groups mixed with local hunter-gatherers and, in many areas, contributed the majority of the ancestry of later populations. They also brought with them domesticated plants and animals, pottery traditions, and a much more settled way of life. [1]
Steppe pastoralists
A third major ancestral component entered Europe later, during the late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, from pastoralist populations of the Eurasian steppe. This “steppe ancestry” spread westwards roughly between 3000 and 2500 BCE, often associated with cultural complexes such as Corded Ware and later Bell Beaker groups. It became an important part of the ancestry of many later European populations, including those in western Europe. [1]

What this means
So, modern western Europeans are the product of repeated migrations, intermarriage and cultural exchange over millennia. The genetic evidence shows a history of mixture, not purity; mobility, not isolation. Studies like this one are important because they show that even within Europe the process was uneven, with some regions adopting farming early and others, such as the Lower Rhine-Meuse wetlands, retaining strong hunter-gatherer ancestry for thousands of years longer than expected. [1]

Their findings are also summarised in a news item from the University of Huddersfield:

New research into ancient DNA sheds light on key phase in European prehistory
Researchers at the University of Huddersfield have used ancient DNA to reveal that hunter-gatherers in one part of Europe survived for thousands of years longer than anywhere else on the continent – and have uncovered the pivotal role of women in the process.
The research was carried out as part of an international network of geneticists and archaeologists led by David Reich at Harvard University, and is published in the leading scientific journal, Nature. The work at the University of Huddersfield was carried out by research student Alessandro Fichera and post-doctoral fellow Dr Francesca Gandini, under the supervision of Dr Maria Pala, Professor Martin B. Richards, and Dr Ceiridwen Edwards, members of the Archaeogenetics Research Group within the School of Applied Sciences. The research was funded as part of a Doctoral Scholarship scheme awarded by the Leverhulme Trust to Professor Richards and Dr Pala. The group collaborated closely with palaeoecologist Professor John Stewart at Bournemouth University and archaeologists at the Université de Liège in Belgium, who excavated and managed the ancient human samples. The study analysed complete human genomes from individuals who lived across a region that encompasses modern-day Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, between 8500 and 1700 BCE.

Map indicating hunter-gatherer ancestry proportions across Europe 4500–2500 BCE

This was a particularly crucial phase in European prehistory when a series of major population and cultural shifts shaped the genetic composition of modern Europeans. Before national borders existed, people moved freely across large distances. In Europe, these movements involved the arrival of genetically distinct populations that mixed and therefore introduced not only new genetic components, but also new languages, cultures, and ways of life.

The impact of these changes was so profound and expansive that virtually all modern-day European populations carry evidence of three ancestral components: a hunter-gatherer component, a Neolithic component brought by the first farmers from the Near East, and a third component associated with pastoralists from Russia.

This latest research reveals that the arrival of farming in the area in question, around ~4500 BCE, did not result in anything like the major shift in genetic composition that took place across the rest of Europe. Instead, it involved the uneven acquisition of farming-related practices by local hunter-gatherer communities with only minimal genetic input from the incoming farmers.

Strikingly, genomic data from the study suggest that this farmer influx was mostly from women marrying into the local hunter-gatherer communities, bringing with them their know-how as well as their genes. This pattern was limited to the riverine wetlands and coastal areas across the region. The wealth of natural resources seems to have allowed the local people to selectively embrace some aspects of farming while also preserving many hunter-gatherer practices, and therefore genes.

The high levels of hunter-gatherer ancestry persisted across the region (modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands) until the end of the Neolithic, around 2500 BCE, when new people spread across Europe. The new incomers this time arrived and mixed fully with local communities, so that the genomic trajectory of the area finally realigned with the neighbouring regions.

We expected a clear change between the older hunter-gatherer populations and the newer agriculturalists, but apparently in the lowlands and along the rivers of the Netherlands and Belgium, the change was less immediate. It's like a Waterworld where time stood still.

Professor John R. Stewart, co-author
Faculty of Science and Technology
Bournemouth University
Poole, UK.

Ancient DNA studies often bring to light unexpected pages of our past. We might anticipate finding the unexpected when analysing samples from unexplored or peripheral regions of the globe. But here we are looking at the heartland of Europe, making these results even more striking. It’s a testament to the power of ancient DNA studies that findings like these can still surprise us. This study has also brought to light the crucial role played by women in the transmission of knowledge from the incoming farming communities to the local hunter-gatherers. Thanks to ancient DNA studies, we can not only uncover the past but also give voice to the invaluable but often overlooked role played by women in shaping human evolution.

Dr Maria Pala, co-author.
School of Applied Sciences
University of Huddersfield
Huddersfield, UK.

Publication:
Olalde, I., Altena, E., Bourgeois, Q. et al.
Lasting Lower Rhine–Meuse forager ancestry shaped Bell Beaker expansion.
Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10111-8

Abstract
Ancient DNA studies revealed that, in Europe from 6500 to 4000 BCE, descendants of western Anatolian farmers mixed with local hunter-gatherers resulting in 70–100% ancestry turnover^1.1, then steppe ancestry spread with the Corded Ware complex 3000–2500 BCE^2.1. Here we document an exception in the wetland, riverine and coastal areas of the Netherlands, Belgium and western Germany, using genome-wide data from 112 people 8500–1700 BCE. A distinctive population with high (approximately 50%) hunter-gatherer ancestry persisted 3,000 years later than in most European regions, reflecting incorporation of female individuals of Early European Farmer ancestry into local communities. In the western Netherlands, the arrival of the Corded Ware complex was also exceptional: lowland individuals from settlements adopting Corded Ware pottery had hardly any steppe ancestry, despite a Y-chromosome characteristic of people associated with the early Corded Ware complex. These distinctive patterns may reflect the specific ecology that they inhabited, which was not amenable to full adoption of the early Neolithic type of farming introduced with Linearbandkeramik^3.1, and resulted in distinct communities where transfer of ideas was accompanied by little gene flow. This changed with the formation of Lower Rhine–Meuse Bell Beaker users by fusion of local people (13–18%) and Corded Ware associated migrants of both sexes. Their subsequent expansion then had a disruptive impact across a much wider part of northwestern Europe, especially in Great Britain where they were the main source of a 90–100% replacement of local Neolithic ancestry.

Olalde, I., Altena, E., Bourgeois, Q. et al.
Lasting Lower Rhine–Meuse forager ancestry shaped Bell Beaker expansion.
Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10111-8

© 2026 Springer Nature Ltd.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

These findings tell a story that is utterly at odds with Biblical mythology. There was no single founding couple created by magic a few thousand years ago, no sudden appearance of fully formed peoples, and no global flood reducing humanity to a tiny remnant from which all later populations somehow sprang. Instead, the evidence reveals a long, intricate human past shaped by migration, intermarriage, cultural exchange and regional continuity over many millennia.

What ancient DNA shows is exactly what the Theory of Evolution would lead us to expect: modern populations are the product of deep ancestry, gradual change and repeated admixture, not separate acts of special creation. Western Europeans did not emerge as some isolated, divinely ordained “kind”, but as the descendants of multiple earlier populations, each with its own history, movements and adaptations. That is the very opposite of the simplistic, childlike account in Genesis.

It is also yet another blow to the fantasies of racial purity so often encouraged, implicitly or explicitly, by creationist and far-right ideologies. The ancestry of modern Europeans is not pure, fixed or primordial, but mixed, dynamic and shared. The genetic record shows that movement and mixture are not aberrations in human history; they are the norm.

So, once again, science presents creationists with a choice they habitually refuse to make: accept the evidence and revise their beliefs, or cling to mythology and deny reality. As always, the facts pose no problem for science, which welcomes new evidence and incorporates it into an ever more detailed understanding of the past. It is creationism, with its brittle dependence on ancient myths and impossibly false history, which is left looking ever more absurd.

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