Ancestry populations · Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer
Early European Farmer
The first farmers of central Europe, the Linear Pottery people whose villages of timber longhouses spread from Hungary to France after 5500 BC. One of the 18 curated source populations in the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era of Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis.
Who they were
- Period
- 5500 to 4900 BC
- Era in the analysis
- Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer
- Region
- Central Europe, from the Carpathian Basin to the Paris Basin
- Role in the model
- Source (left) population, a reference qpAdm tests against
The Early European Farmers of this source are the people of the Linear Pottery culture (Linearbandkeramik, LBK), named for the bands of incised lines on their pots. The culture took shape in the Carpathian Basin around 5500 BC among descendants of the farmers who had reached the Balkans from Anatolia, and within a few centuries its villages of great timber longhouses lined the loess valleys from Hungary to the Paris Basin and Ukraine. The genomes behind it come from four sites in Germany, Halberstadt-Sonntagsfeld and Karsdorf in Saxony-Anhalt, Stuttgart-Mühlhausen and Schwetzingen in Baden-Württemberg, and date from about 5300 to 4850 BC (Haak et al. 2015; Mathieson et al. 2015).
Genetically they were mostly the descendants of those Anatolian farmers, with a small share from the hunter-gatherers already living in Europe, a share that was higher in the eastern part of the culture than in the west (Lipson et al. 2017; Gelabert et al. 2024). Their communities appear to have kept their men at home while women moved between villages, and at the massacre site of Asparn-Schletz in Austria the victims were barely related to one another, people from a large population rather than one small village (Gelabert et al. 2024). Ancestry of this kind became one of the three great ingredients of present-day Europeans, alongside the Western Hunter Gatherers and the later steppe herders (Lazaridis et al. 2014; Haak et al. 2015).
In Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis, Early European Farmer is a source in the "Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer" era. The report shows its weight with a standard error and a Z-score, so you can see not only how much of the model it carries but how confidently that share is separated from zero, and a model that cannot support it is rejected rather than published. It shares most of its ancestry with the Anatolian Neolithic Farmer source and a little with the Western Hunter Gatherer, so its weight is best read together with those two: the model can express the same farmer signal through either.
Y haplogroup G2a dominates the male lines, with T1a and H2 seen less often, and mtDNA N1a, K, J, T2 and H are typical of these samples. A haplogroup alone is never evidence of a share.
In your reportArtwork is an AI-generated artistic interpretation informed by the archaeological record, not documentary evidence.The Early European Farmers were the first farmers of central Europe, the people of the Linear Pottery culture, named for the bands of lines incised on their pots. Around 5500 BC their ancestors, farmers whose roots lay in Anatolia, moved up the Danube from the Balkans, and within a few centuries their villages stretched from the Paris Basin to Ukraine. They settled on fertile loess soils along rivers and built villages of great timber longhouses, some more than 30 metres long, where families lived and kept their harvest. They grew emmer and einkorn wheat, peas, lentils and flax, and kept cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. Most of their ancestry came from those Anatolian farmers, with a small share from the hunter-gatherers already living in Europe. The individuals here lived between about 5300 and 4850 BC at four sites in Germany, from Halberstadt and Karsdorf in Saxony-Anhalt to Stuttgart and Schwetzingen in the southwest. Their ancestry became a large part of the ancestry of most later Europeans.
Where this population sits in the model
Ancient Ancestry, our qpAdm analysis, models your genome once per era. The Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era has 18 curated source populations, and Early European Farmer is one of them: every candidate model for that era is a combination of these sources, tested against a fixed set of outgroup populations, and only a model that passes the statistical fit check is published, with a p-value and a standard error on every proportion.
A reference, not a verdict: every population on this page is a source the model tests your genome against, a well-sampled point in ancient genetic space that a mixture of ancestries can be expressed in terms of. A weight on it means your genome is well described as partly resembling those people; it is never a statement that they, specifically, were your ancestors, and a population that fits well is not the only one that could.
Read how qpAdm works on the Ancient Ancestry page, or the definitions in the glossary.
Model it yourself for free
The Ancestrify Lab runs in your browser, with no account. Paste a Global25 row into an admixture calculator that covers the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era, rank the closest ancient populations in the distance tool, or run f4, qpWave and qpAdm on the public panel in the AdmixTools 2 workbench. These are Global25 fits and exploratory statistics, not the formal qpAdm model of Ancient Ancestry.
Questions
Who were the Early European Farmer (5500 to 4900 BC)?
Early European Farmer is one of the 18 curated source populations in the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era of Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis: a group of published genomes pooled as a single reference the model can test your genome against. These are ancient individuals from one archaeological context wherever the record holds them, and present-day genomes standing in where it does not, which the description on this page says.
Does Early European Farmer in my result mean they were my ancestors?
No. A source population is a reference the model tests against, never a statement about who your ancestors were. A coefficient on this source means the ancestry those burials represent helps explain your genome to within statistical noise: similar ancestry composition, not descent from those individuals. Ancestrify never claims a population is your ancestor.
What does a Early European Farmer percentage in a qpAdm model mean?
qpAdm estimates the mixture proportions that best explain your genome as a combination of the chosen sources, given a fixed set of outgroup (right) populations, and reports a p-value for whether the model is statistically acceptable together with a standard error for every proportion. The percentage is that estimated share, with its uncertainty published beside it.
How do I get a qpAdm model that uses Early European Farmer?
Order Ancient Ancestry, Ancestrify's qpAdm analysis (€29.99, one-time), and upload the raw file you already have from a consumer test. Your genome is merged into the AADR reference panel and modelled across both eras; each era's model is built from that era's source populations, so a model for the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era draws on Early European Farmer where it improves the fit.
Can I model Early European Farmer ancestry for free first?
Yes. The Ancestrify Lab runs Global25 admixture calculators, a nearest-populations distance tool and an AdmixTools 2 workbench in your browser with no account, and several calculators cover the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models. Ancient Ancestry, the paid analysis, is the one with a p-value.
More populations from the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era
Browse the full directory of source populations, or continue with another population from the same era:
Anatolian Neolithic Farmer8500 to 6000 BC
Ancestral South Indian10000 to 2000 BC
Caucasian Hunter Gatherer13000 to 7000 BC
East Asian Neolithic Farmer5000 to 2000 BC
Eastern Hunter Gatherer12000 to 5000 BC
Iberomaurusian15000 to 8000 BC
Iranian Neolithic Farmer8000 to 5000 BC
Levantine Neolithic Farmer8800 to 6500 BC
Native American15000 to 1500 BC
Natufian12000 to 8000 BC
North African Farmer5200 to 4000 BC
Northeast Asian6000 to 2000 BC
Sarazm Copper Age3700 to 3300 BC
Sub Saharan African
West African10000 to 1500 BC
Western Hunter Gatherer12000 to 6000 BC
Western Steppe Herder5000 to 2800 BC