Stone Age · Late 4th to 3rd millennium BC · Bury, Oise, Hauts-de-France, France
Ancient DNA from French megalithic tomb shows Stone Age population collapse
Genomes of 132 people buried near Paris show the tomb's first community collapsed around 3000 BC and was replaced by newcomers with ancestry from southern France and Iberia.
Peer-reviewed paper
Bury, France Ancient DNA from 132 people buried at Bury, about 50 kilometres north of Paris, shows that a Stone Age community disappeared around 3000 BC. They were buried in a megalithic tomb, one built of large stones. The community had used the tomb in the late fourth millennium BC.
The tomb was used again in the third millennium BC. The people placed in it then were not closely related to those buried before. Their ancestry came from southern France and the Iberian Peninsula.
The University of Copenhagen led the study, which is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. It adds genetic evidence to the debate over the "Neolithic decline". Archaeologists use this term for the drop in population and activity they have recorded across much of northern Europe at the end of the Neolithic. This was when the building of megalithic tombs stopped.
Frederik Valeur Seersholm, assistant professor at the Globe Institute, is one of the lead authors. Martin Sikora, associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, is the senior author.
We see a clear genetic break between the two periods. The earlier group resembles Stone Age farming populations from northern France and Germany, while the later group shows strong genetic links to southern France and the Iberian Peninsula.
Frederik Valeur Seersholm, assistant professor, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen
Two phases of burial with a gap between them
Bury is one of the largest Stone Age burial sites in France. People used it in two phases, with a period of apparent abandonment in between. The first phase ended around 3000 BC. That was at about the time megalithic tomb-building across north-western Europe began to decline.
Radiocarbon data from many regions point to fewer burials and less human presence between 3000 and 2600 BC. Forest regrowth suggests that farmland was abandoned. Similar gaps in burial activity have been documented in Germany and Scandinavia.
Analysis of the skeletons from the earlier phase shows unusually high mortality. Deaths were particularly common among children and young people.
The demographic pattern is a strong indicator of crisis.
Laure Salanova, research director, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)
The DNA also records a change in who was buried together. In the earlier phase, several generations of the same extended families were placed in the tomb. The team reads this as a sign of tightly knit, kin-based communities.
The later phase had fewer close relatives and more unrelated individuals. Burials were more selective, and a single male lineage dominated.
This indicates that the population change was accompanied by a shift in how society was structured.
Frederik Valeur Seersholm, University of Copenhagen
Plague was present but was not the only cause
The researchers used a DNA method that analyses all the genetic material preserved in bone. This includes the genetic material of microbes as well as humans.
The method found traces of the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis. It also found Borrelia recurrentis, which causes louse-borne relapsing fever. Plague was relatively rare among the people tested at Bury.
We can confirm that plague was present, but the evidence does not support it as the sole cause of the population collapse. The decline was likely driven by a combination of disease, environmental stress and other disruptive events.
Martin Sikora, associate professor, University of Copenhagen
An earlier migration from Iberia
The results also bear on the timing of migrations into northern Europe. The arrival of people with steppe ancestry in the Bronze Age is well documented. The Bury genomes, however, point to an earlier movement northwards from Iberia around 2900 BC. This was before the spread of the Bell Beaker culture.
The researchers think the decline may have left a "demographic vacuum". In their view, this allowed new groups to move into previously occupied areas.
The study also offers an explanation for a wider pattern. Across Europe, people stopped building megalithic tombs and other large stone monuments at around the same time. In Seersholm's words: "We now see that end of these monumental constructions coincides with the disappearance of the population that built them."
Sources
- Ancient DNA Study Reveals Mysterious 5,000-Year Population Collapse in Neolithic Europe (Arkeonews)
- Stone age population collapse revealed by DNA study in France (Archaeology Wiki)
Paper: Seersholm, F.V., Ramsøe, A., Cao, J. et al. Population discontinuity in the Paris Basin linked to evidence of the Neolithic decline. Nature Ecology & Evolution 10, 677–688 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03027-z
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