30,000-Year-Old DNA Shows Ice Age Europeans Were More Connected Than Thought

More than 30,000 years ago, human groups inhabiting Europe during the Ice Age maintained much broader connections than previously thought. An international team led by the University of Vienna analyzed ancient DNA from human remains and cave sediments, finding evidence of gene flow across enormous distances. The results, published in Science Advances, challenge the idea that populations in the eastern and western parts of the continent lived in isolation.

The work focuses on communities associated with the Gravettian culture, which spread across Europe between about 34,000 and 25,000 years ago. Until now, archaeology suggested long-distance contacts, but genetics pointed to fairly separate lineages. By combining new data with previous information, researchers detected greater interconnection and, at the same time, the persistence of certain lineages in southwestern Europe for millennia.

One of the most revealing findings comes from the remains of a woman who lived about 30,000 years ago in the Isturitz cave in southwestern France. Her genome is the oldest broad-range one obtained so far from a modern human in that region. Although most of her ancestry is linked to western populations, she also carried genetic components associated with groups from central and eastern Europe.

Models indicate that this mixing occurred approximately between 32,500 and 31,500 years ago. “Our results show that the eastern and western populations of Europe were not as genetically isolated as previously assumed,” said Pere Gelabert, the study's first author and a member of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna. A similar genetic signature appeared in another individual previously analyzed in Ormesson, also in France, reinforcing the possibility that Isturitz served as a meeting point between different groups.

DNA in sediments and survival in refuges

While some groups exchanged genes on a large scale, others maintained a continuous genetic presence in certain areas. In the Chufín cave in northern Spain, evidence was found that western European ancestry persisted in the southwest for an extended period. Researchers also recovered nuclear human DNA from sediments in the El Mirón cave in Cantabria, from a layer dating back about 22,000 years. Although there were no bones or teeth, the genetic traces allowed the identification of the ancestry of those who occupied the site.

“Sedimentary DNA allows us to recover genetic information from periods when human remains are absent,” explained Ron Pinhasi, the senior author of the work. The data show that this western ancestry remained in the region through the Last Glacial Maximum, when ice sheets reached their maximum extent. This supports the idea that the Iberian Peninsula acted as a key refuge for human populations during the most extreme conditions of the Ice Age.

In southern Italy, the analysis of Ostuni1b, a male fetus considered the son of the woman known as Ostuni1, provided another clue. The father belonged to the same ancestral group as the mother, but they were not closely related. This suggests mating practices that limited inbreeding within those communities.

Taken together, the findings demonstrate that long-term regional continuity and large-scale genetic connections were not mutually exclusive. Both dynamics shaped the population history of Ice Age Europe. The team is now combining sediment DNA with proteomic techniques to investigate the early expansions of modern humans on the continent and their interactions with carnivores in sites where organic remains are scarce.

The research provides a more dynamic view of Gravettian societies: groups capable of maintaining contact networks across vast distances while simultaneously preserving local lineages for thousands of years amid extreme environmental changes. The genetic evidence from Isturitz, El Mirón, and other sites rewrites the map of human interactions on a continent covered in ice.