A New Study Illuminates How Neolithic Lifeways Spread from Anatolia to the Aegean and Europe

A sweeping new analysis published in Science is reshaping our understanding of how early farming traditions radiated outward from Anatolia. The study sheds light on long-debated questions about how Neolithic lifeways moved from Anatolia to the Aegean and eventually Europe, revealing a far more intricate story than the linear models once proposed.

Western Anatolia as a crossroads—not a corridor

The international team, which includes researchers from Akdeniz University, examined 30 newly sequenced ancient DNA samples from 11 Neolithic settlements across Central and Western Anatolia. These data were evaluated alongside more than 400 previously published genomes, enabling the reconstruction of genetic continuity and transformation during the Early Holocene.

The results demonstrate that Western Anatolia hosted enduring hunter-gatherer communities whose genetic signatures persisted well into the Neolithic. Around 9000 years ago, these groups encountered incoming farmers from Central Anatolia. In many regions, the encounter produced biological and cultural blending, accelerating the transition to settled life. Yet in the Lycian highlands, communities adopted Neolithic practices without significant intermixing, relying instead on cultural transmission rather than population movement.

This finding offers one of the clearest demonstrations to date that cultural similarity does not necessarily imply shared ancestry—a rare genetic confirmation of the archaeological saying: “pottery is not people.”

Ideas moved faster than people

Architectural traditions, burial customs, and stone-tool technologies across Western Anatolia often spread through networks of communication, not mass migration. The study underscores that material culture—no matter how consistent across a region—may reflect shared knowledge, not shared bloodlines.

Over time, populations shaped by both local foragers and Central Anatolian farmers developed a hybrid genetic profile that would later travel westward across the Aegean. These blended communities contributed directly to the formation of Europe’s earliest farming societies.

Girmeler Mound: a key witness to deep-time transitions

A significant part of the dataset comes from Girmeler Mound, located just north of the ancient city of Tlos in Lycia. The site, composed of two karstic caves and a mound at their entrance, preserves an extraordinary sequence of occupations. Excavations launched in 2009 have revealed layers extending back to 14,000 BCE, making Girmeler one of the few places in Western Anatolia where Mesolithic foragers and early farming communities can be studied side by side.

The site documents continuous cultural developments from the Late Pleistocene through the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, followed by fragmentary traces of Iron Age, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman presence. This long stratigraphy positions Girmeler as a rare node where local traditions and incoming influences converged, offering crucial context for the broader genetic findings.

A milestone for understanding Europe’s first farmers

By merging archaeological evidence with large-scale genomic data, the study demonstrates that the spread of Neolithic lifeways was not a uniform migration wave but a mosaic of local continuity, regional exchange, and selective mobility. The process by which farming transformed the Aegean and Europe emerges as a dynamic interplay between indigenous foragers, incoming groups, and shared knowledge.

For Anatolian archaeology—and for European prehistory more broadly—the findings mark a turning point. They reveal that the roots of farming in Europe trace back not only to Central Anatolia’s pioneering communities but also to the complex cultural and biological landscapes of Western Anatolia.

Cover Photo: The towering karstic shelters of Girmeler Mound, where excavations reveal one of Western Anatolia’s rare continuous sequences from the Late Pleistocene to the Neolithic. Credit: Akdeniz University