Modern Europeans — also known as “White” people — descend primarily from three ancient populations: the Western Hunter-Gatherers, the Anatolian Neolithic Farmers, and the Western Steppe Herders. Although these populations followed different paths across Eurasia, all three carried ancestry inherited from the Early West Eurasians.
The Early West Eurasians were prehistoric populations who inhabited Europe, western Asia, and northern Asia during the Ice Age. Clear genetic evidence of this ancestral line dates to approximately 37,000 years ago in Russia.
The Early West Eurasians also carried a small amount of Neanderthal ancestry inherited through interbreeding between the two populations.
As Early West Eurasian communities spread across an enormous territory, distance, isolation, and the changing climate of the Ice Age separated them into different regional populations. Some settled in Europe, others travelled eastward across northern Asia, and still others developed in Anatolia and around the Caucasus.
One branch of the Early West Eurasians established itself in Europe. Over thousands of years, its descendants divided into several genetically distinct Ice Age hunter-gatherer populations associated with cultures such as the Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian.
Europe’s population changed repeatedly during the Ice Age. Advancing glaciers isolated some communities and forced others into southern refuges. When the climate improved, surviving populations expanded into newly habitable territory, sometimes replacing or absorbing the people who had lived there before them.
Beginning around 14,000 years ago, a population related to hunter-gatherers from southern Europe expanded across western and central Europe. Its members became known as the Western Hunter-Gatherers. They replaced or absorbed many earlier populations and became the principal inhabitants of much of Europe before the arrival of Neolithic farmers.
Today, the highest levels of Western Hunter-Gatherer-related ancestry are found among populations of the Baltic States, Belarus, Poland, and western Russia.
While Ice Age populations developed in Europe, other Early West Eurasians traveled eastward across northern Asia. There they encountered people carrying Early East Eurasian ancestry. The mixture of these two ancestral lines produced the Ancient North Siberians, represented by individuals who lived at Yana in northeastern Siberia approximately 32,000 years ago.
Related northern populations later gave rise to the Ancient North Eurasians. They are represented by the Mal’ta boy, who lived near Lake Baikal approximately 24,000 years ago. His people carried approximately 67% Early West Eurasian ancestry and 33% Early East Eurasian ancestry.
As the Ice Age ended, Ancient North Eurasian ancestry spread in several directions. It became part of the ancestry of the ancient peoples of the Americas, the earliest population represented by the Tarim mummies, and the hunter-gatherers of eastern Europe. Through the last of these branches — the Eastern Hunter-Gatherers — the Ancient North Eurasians contributed to the eventual formation of the Western Steppe Herders.
Today, the highest levels of Ancient North Eurasian-related ancestry among European populations are found in the Baltic region, the East European Plain, and the North Caucasus.
Farther south, a population carrying Early West Eurasian ancestry developed in Anatolia. These people also carried ancestry from an unidentified lineage known as the Basal Eurasians. Little is known about the origins of the Basal Eurasians. No remains belonging entirely to this population have been identified, and their existence is inferred from the ancestry they contributed to later peoples.
By approximately 15,000 years ago, the population of central Anatolia had developed into the Anatolian Hunter-Gatherers. They were genetically distinct from the hunter-gatherers of Europe, northern Asia, and the Caucasus, although they shared Early West Eurasian ancestry.
Beginning around 9000 BC, their descendants cultivated crops, domesticated animals, and established permanent settlements. Through this transition, they became the Anatolian Neolithic Farmers.
From approximately 7000 BC onward, groups of Anatolian farmers crossed the Aegean and entered southeastern Europe. They brought crops, domesticated animals, and permanent village life with them. As they expanded farther into the continent, they encountered and mixed with the Western Hunter-Gatherers.
Their descendants became the Early European Farmers, carrying approximately 77–80% Early West Eurasian-related ancestry and 20–23% Basal Eurasian ancestry. These populations expanded westward along the Mediterranean and northward through the Danube Valley. In some regions, incoming farmers largely replaced the local hunter-gatherers. In others, the two populations lived side by side and gradually mixed.
Over time, European farmers acquired increasing amounts of Western Hunter-Gatherer ancestry. By the end of the Neolithic, much of Europe was inhabited by farming populations combining the first two major ancestral foundations of modern Europeans: Western Hunter-Gatherer and Anatolian Neolithic Farmer ancestry.
Today, the highest percentage of Anatolian Neolithic Farmer-related ancestry among European populations is found in Sardinians.
During the same period, another population developed east of Anatolia around the southern Caucasus. Like the peoples of Anatolia, the Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers descended partly from the Early West Eurasian and Basal Eurasian lineages. However, they also carried ancestry connected to the Ancient North Eurasians.
One genetic model estimates that Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers derived approximately 22% of their ancestry directly from an Ancient North Eurasian-related population. Because the Ancient North Eurasians themselves carried both Early West Eurasian and Early East Eurasian ancestry, this introduced an additional eastern component into the Caucasus.
When reduced to the three deepest ancestral lineages discussed in this article, the same model gives an approximate breakdown of 61–63% Early West Eurasian ancestry, 15–16% Early East Eurasian ancestry, and 21–23% Basal Eurasian or other deeply diverged ancestry. These proportions are estimates from one genetic model rather than a universally fixed formula.
By approximately 13,000 years ago, these ancestral sources had combined to form the distinct population known as the Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers. They remained genetically distinguishable from the Western Hunter-Gatherers, Anatolian Hunter-Gatherers, and Ancient North Eurasians, despite sharing ancestry with them.
After the Ice Age, populations carrying Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer ancestry moved northward toward the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. There they encountered and mixed with the Eastern Hunter-Gatherers, eventually contributing substantially to the ancestry of the Western Steppe Herders and the Yamnaya.
Today, the highest levels of Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer-related ancestry are found among populations of the Caucasus.
The Eastern Hunter-Gatherers inhabited the forests and steppes of eastern Europe during the Mesolithic. They carried approximately 70% Ancient North Eurasian ancestry and 30% Western Hunter-Gatherer-related ancestry.
This mixture made the Eastern Hunter-Gatherers genetically distinct from both the Western Hunter-Gatherers and the Ancient North Eurasians. Their communities extended across regions surrounding the Volga, Don, and other major river systems.
Their position between Europe, northern Asia, and the Caucasus brought them into contact with populations carrying Caucasus-related ancestry. These encounters began the long process through which the ancestry of the Western Steppe Herders was formed.
Today, the highest levels of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer-related ancestry among European populations are found in Finns and Estonians.
While hunter-gatherers and farmers were mixing in Europe, another series of population movements was unfolding farther east. Beginning during the sixth millennium BC, Eastern Hunter-Gatherers mixed with populations carrying Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer ancestry. These interactions produced the Steppe Eneolithic populations and the earliest recognizable form of western steppe ancestry.
Over time, related communities formed a genetic continuum extending from the Caucasus to the Lower Volga. Known collectively as the Caucasus–Lower Volga (CLV) population, these people carried different proportions of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer and Caucasus-related ancestry. Communities closer to the Caucasus generally carried more Caucasus ancestry, while those farther north carried more Eastern Hunter-Gatherer ancestry.
By approximately 3300 BC, further mixture had produced the Western Steppe Herders, best represented by the Yamnaya, who are also known as the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Broadly, the Yamnaya carried approximately equal proportions of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer-related and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer-related ancestry. More recent genetic analysis traces this ancestry through intermediate populations: approximately 80% came from the Caucasus–Lower Volga genetic continuum, which already combined Lower Volga and Caucasus Neolithic ancestry, while the remaining 20% came from hunter-gatherers of the Dnipro–Don region.
The Yamnaya inhabited the Pontic-Caspian Steppe north of the Black and Caspian Seas. They practiced mobile pastoralism, raised cattle and other livestock, and used wagons to travel across the open grasslands. Their mobility connected communities across enormous distances and enabled Yamnaya-related populations, also known as the Indo-Europeans, to expand rapidly through Europe and Asia.
Beginning around 3000 BC, the Indo-Europeans moved westward into Europe. Their ancestry became especially prominent among the Corded Ware peoples and later contributed heavily to the Bell Beaker populations. These migrations also carried Indo-European languages across much of the continent.
Today, the highest levels of Western Steppe Herder-related ancestry among European populations are found in Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
When the Western Steppe Herders entered Europe, they encountered populations already descended from the Western Hunter-Gatherers and Anatolian Neolithic Farmers. Their mixture reunited ancestral branches that had developed separately across Europe, Anatolia, the Caucasus, eastern Europe, and northern Asia for tens of thousands of years.
The Western Hunter-Gatherers contributed the ancestry of Europe’s post-Ice Age hunter-gatherers. The Anatolian Neolithic Farmers contributed the ancestry of the farmers who transformed Europe during the Neolithic. The Western Steppe Herders contributed the combined inheritance of eastern European, northern Eurasian, and Caucasus-related populations.
The mixture of these three major populations formed the principal ancestral foundation of modern European peoples. Their proportions vary across the continent, and later migrations created further regional differences, but this ancient inheritance continues to connect Europeans to the peoples of Ice Age western Eurasia.