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 turnover1, then steppe ancestry spread with the Corded Ware complex 3000–2500 bce2. 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 Linearbandkeramik3, 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.
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Data availability
Genotype data for individuals included in this study can be obtained from the Harvard Dataverse repository (https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/datasets). The DNA sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive under accession number PRJEB105335. Other newly reported data, such as radiocarbon dates and archaeological context information, are included in the Article and its Supplementary Information.
Change history
18 February 2026
In the version of the article initially published, the text “Provinciaal Archeologisch Depot Flevoland (Tineke Roovers)” was missing from the Acknowledgements and has now been added to the HTML and PDF versions of the article.
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Acknowledgements
We thank N. Adamski, N. Broomandkhoshbacht, E. Curtis, I. Greenslade, K. Stewardson and F. Zalzala for laboratory work; the staff at the Provinciaal Depot voor Archeologie van Noord-Holland (M. Veen and R. van Eerden), Provinciaal Archeologisch depot Zuid-Holland (I. Riemersma and M. Phlippeau), Archeologisch Depot Gelderland (S. Weiss-König), Provinciaal Archeologisch Depot Flevoland (Tineke Roovers), and National Museum of Antiquities Leiden (L. Amkreutz) for granting permission to sample ancient remains and assistance in sampling; T. Grange and E.-M. Geigl for facilitating access to Bréviandes genomic data. The aDNA data generation and analysis was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01-HG012287); the John Templeton Foundation (grant 61220); a private gift from J.-F. Clin; the Allen Discovery Center program, a Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group advised program of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation; the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (D.R.); grant RYC2019-027909-I and project PID2022-140886NA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, “ESF Investing in your future” and FEDER, UE (I.O.); the Basque Government under “Grupos Consolidados” grant no. IT1633-22 (I.O.); NWO-VIDI grant “The Talking Dead” VI.VIDI.191.149 (Q.B.); the Max Planck Society, by the French Research Foundation and German Research Foundation (to M.R., W.H. and M.-F.D., project INTERACT, ANR-17-FRAL-0010 and DFG-HA-5407/4-1, 2018-21); and the Leverhulme Trust (A.F., F.G., C.J.E., M.B.R., M.P.). The accepted version of this article (before the editing, proofreading and formatting changes following the paper being accepted) is subject to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Open Access to Publications policy; HHMI laboratory heads have previously granted a non-exclusive CC BY 4.0 licence to the public and a sublicensable licence to HHMI in their research articles. Pursuant to those licences, the accepted manuscript can be made freely available under a CC BY 4.0 licence immediately after publication.
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I.O., E.A., Q.B., H.F. and D.R. wrote the manuscript with the input of all of the other authors. M.B.R., R.P., W.H., M.P. and D.R. supervised parts of the study. I.O., I.L., N.P. and M.R. analysed genetic data. E.A., Q.B. and H.F. edited archaeological information. E.A, L.A., S.B., M.-F.D., A.F., D.F., F.G., J.F.K., L.M.K., C.v.d.L., J.v.d.L., K.L., L.L.K., R.L., R.M., H.M., P.N., D.C.M.R., M.R., L.S., J.R.S., T.t.A., M.T. and C.J.E. sampled anthropological remains and/or contributed to the creation of the archaeological supplement. G.S., M.M., A.M. and S.M. processed bioinformatic data. K.C., O.C., T.F., L.I., J.O., I.P., L.Q., J.N.W., C.J.E. and N.R. carried out wet laboratory work.
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Extended data figures and tables
Extended Data Fig. 2 Hunter-gatherer ancestry proportions across time in the Lower Rhine-Meuse area.
Ancestry proportions were estimated using qpAdm (Supplementary Table 6).
Extended Data Fig. 3 Genetic connections of Lower Rhine-Meuse CW/Vlaardingen individuals (n = 3).
a, IBD sharing of Lower Rhine-Meuse CW/Vlaardingen individuals. Sites are represented by circles with size proportional to the number of individuals amenable to IBD calling. Grey circles indicate archaeological sites between 3000-2000 bce with no IBD connections to CW/Vlaardingen individuals. The map was drawn using public-domain Natural Earth data with the rnaturalearth package in R87. b, Decay of IBD sharing with geographic distance for Lower Rhine-Meuse CW/Vlaardingen individuals. Pairs were considered to share IBD if they share at least one segment of >12 cM. Dotted lines represent IBD connections involving at least one individual without steppe-related ancestry.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Admixture time estimates using DATES81.
Boxes represent the chronological range for each population. Confidence intervals represent admixture date ranges, using 28 years per generation and the average date of the chronological range. We tested Balkan_N + WHG admixture for groups in blue, and MN_Wartberg+Germany_CordedWare admixture for groups in orange. In bold, groups from the Lower Rhine-Meuse region.
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Archaeological background, archaeological site information and methods descriptions, including Supplementary Information 1–4, Supplementary Figs. 1–7, additional Supplementary Tables and Supplementary References.
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Supplementary Tables 1–16.
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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
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10111-8
