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Bronze Age genomes reveal migration to Britain

The genomes of hundreds of individuals who lived in Great Britain and in continental Europe during the Bronze Age provide evidence for a migration of people from the continent to southern Britain between 1000 and 875 bc.
  1. Daniel G. Bradley

    1. Daniel G. Bradley is at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland.

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Around the year 2300 bc, a man now nicknamed the Amesbury Archer was buried with exceptional riches near the ancient stone monument Stonehenge in southern England. The Amesbury Archer and the items buried with him provide a snapshot of a culture in the south of Britain that used metal and created distinctive ceramics, known as Bell Beaker pottery. This man was also an immigrant: analysis of oxygen isotopes in the enamel layers of his teeth that had formed in childhood suggested he originated from the Alps in central Europe1. Writing in Nature, Patterson et al.2 analyse his genome and those of hundreds of other ancient individuals buried across Britain, as well as in continental Europe, to unravel Britain’s migratory past with unprecedented granularity.

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Nature 601, 512-513 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03770-2

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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