Migrants from Mediterranean introduced farming to north Europe

Before their arrival, northern Europeans were nomadic hunter gatherers who lived off wild plants and animals.

A team at Uppsala University in Sweden says the Mediterranean migrants from the warm lands of southern Europe brought with them knowledge of farming that first developed in the Middle East around 11,000 years ago.

Eventually, both groups interbred and gave rise to modern northern Europeans, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

In fact, three of the four skeletons were hunter gatherers, buried in flat grave sites that were typical of their culture. The fourth was a farmer, laid to rest 249 miles away beneath one of the megalithic tomb stones associated with agricultural communities.

DNA from the bones revealed a stark difference between the hunter gatherers and the farmer. Analysis of thousands of molecular markers showed the farmer had genetic fingerprints matching those of present-day populations from southern Europe, say the researchers.

"The Stone Age farmer's genetic profile matched that of people currently living in the vicinity of the Mediterranean, on Cyprus, for example," said lead researcher Pontus Skoglund.

"The three hunter-gatherers from the same time most resembled Northern Europeans, without exactly matching any particular group. When you put these findings in archaeological context, a picture begins to emerge of Stone Age farmers migrating from south to north across Europe.