How Farming Reshaped Our Genomes

-> How Farming Reshaped Our Genomes
ScienceNOW
The advent of farming 10,000 years ago changed human biology forever. Now, the discovery of an 8,000 year-old skeleton in Spain reveals what European hunter-gatherers were like - dark-skinned, blue-eyed, unable to digest milk - and how they turned into early farmers.
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Before farming began to spread across Europe some 8500 years ago, the continent’s occupants were hunter-gatherers. They were unable to digest starch and milk, according to a new ancient DNA study of a nearly 8000-year-old human skeleton from Spain. But these original occupants did already possess immune defenses against some of the diseases that would later become the scourge of civilization, and they apparently had dark skin. The findings are helping researchers understand what genetic and biological changes humans went through as they made the transition from hunting and gathering to farming.