The Neolithic Transition in Europe at 50 Years

The research that would bring archaeology and human genetics together for the first time began with a seminar at the University of Pavia in 1970. Now Luca Cavalli-Sforza and I measured the average rate of spread of early farming over Europe and published it in 1971. We then put forward the wave of advance model (after R. A. Fisher) and the hypothesis of demic diffusion to explain the long and slow expansion of agro-pastoralism from Anatolia to Scandinavia. Between 1972 and 1977, we both taught in the new Program in Human Biology at Stanford University and initiated a wide range of studies leading to our book The Neolithic Transition in Europe (1984). The widening Harvest then appeared in 2004. In 2005, we measured the rate of spread again and came up with the same result. But, on the genetic side, the research was extremely expensive and moved at a slow pace until the just right bone (rich in DNA) was found in 2013. Thus, in the last ten years, after a lengthy saga of debate and uncertainty, recent genetic studies show that our ideas are on the mark.

Text available at https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2012.11713