Ideas traveled farther than people in the early days of farming

The move from hunting and gathering to farming changed human life forever. It shaped how we live, eat, work, and organize our communities.

But how exactly this shift happened across regions like Anatolia and the Aegean has long been debated. Did early farmers move in and bring agriculture with them? Or did local hunter-gatherers adopt new ways on their own?

A recent study sheds light on this complex transition. Scientists from Middle East Technical University (METU) and Hacettepe University in Turkey, working with the University of Lausanne (UNIL) in Switzerland, used both archaeology and genetics to piece together the story.

The research shows that the Neolithic shift wasn’t a one-size-fits-all process. In some places, people moved in with new ideas. In others, the ideas moved faster than the people.

Farming spread without people moving

By analyzing DNA and artifacts together, the team uncovered a more nuanced picture of how early farming spread.

“In some regions of West Anatolia, we see the first transitions to village life nearly 10,000 years ago. However, we also observe thousands of years of genetic continuity, which means that populations did not migrate or mix massively, even though cultural transition was definitely happening,” explained Dilek Koptekin, the study’s first author.

This means that, in parts of Anatolia, people were changing how they lived without being replaced by outsiders. The local communities stayed genetically stable for thousands of years – even as their tools, homes, and rituals evolved.

Cultural exchange of farming ideas

We already knew that by around 6,000 BCE, farmers from Anatolia were moving into Europe, replacing hunting and gathering with agriculture. But what happened before that moment wasn’t clear.

“Our study allows us to go back in time – to events that were mainly a matter of speculation up to now,” said Koptekin.

One of the key breakthroughs came from sequencing the genome of a 9,000-year-old individual from West Anatolia – the oldest such genome recovered from the region.

Alongside this, the researchers looked at 29 new paleogenomes and combined that with existing data. The results pointed to something unexpected: very little change in the population’s genetic makeup for over 7,000 years.

“Genetically speaking, these people were mainly locals, meaning that their ancestors had not recently arrived from elsewhere. Yet their material culture evolved rapidly: they moved from caves to houses, and adopted new tools and rituals from afar,” said Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas from UNIL.

“This suggests that these communities adopted Neolithic practices by cultural exchange rather than population replacement.”

Culture on the move

So how did new ideas reach these communities without large migrations? The answer might be in what the researchers call “background mobility.”

“This means a low but steady movement of individuals around different regions, perhaps linked to exchange, finding partners, or other motivations. These encounters then led to the sharing of material and ideas.” explained Mehmet Somel from METU.

Evidence of this kind of subtle movement shows up in trade goods like obsidian – volcanic glass used to make tools – found in West Anatolia but sourced from volcanoes in Central Anatolia, hundreds of kilometers away.

It’s a clear sign that people were connected, even if they weren’t relocating in large numbers.

Matching genes and artifacts

To get a deeper understanding of how movement and exchange worked, the team used a new approach. They matched ancient DNA data with archaeological findings by reviewing hundreds of studies and quantifying things like pottery styles, tools, and architectural remains.

“By giving quantitative values to the archaeological data, we were able to directly compare large amounts of data across different sites for the first time,” said Çiğdem Atakuman from METU.

This allowed the researchers to see where people might have moved, and where ideas and practices like farming spread independently of population shifts.

The findings also support a long-standing saying among archaeologists: “Pots don’t equal people.”

Just because a new style of pottery appears in the archaeological record doesn’t mean a new group of people moved in. “Our study confirms this notion,” said Koptekin.

The Neolithic was a mix of changes

Migration wasn’t completely off the table. In some parts of Anatolia, genetic data shows that around 7,000 BCE, new groups did arrive and mix with local populations. In the Aegean, too, another wave of movement brought new cultural elements that would later spread into Europe.

“These types of migration events, which leave genetically visible shifts, probably comprised a small fraction of movement happening compared to background mobility,” said Füsun Özer from Hacettepe University.

“The Neolithic, in this view, was not a single process, but a patchwork of transformations, combining cultural adoption, mobility, and at times, migration.”

Koptekin noted that humans have always been adaptive and inclined to change their way of living. “We don’t need crises or big migration events to bring about change.”

A more balanced way to do science

The study was primarily led by researchers based in Turkey, a point the team sees as crucial. For Malaspinas, this kind of collaboration helps science grow in a more balanced way.

“Our collaboration shows how we, as a scientific community, should move forward to create a more inclusive and globally balanced research landscape,” she said.

By linking large-scale archaeological and genetic data, the researchers were able to move past overly simple models of how farming spread. The story is richer, more complex, and more human.

And that’s the real takeaway: change didn’t always come from conquest or collapse. Sometimes, people just tried something new – and stuck with it.

The full study was published in the journal Science.

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