Archaeogenetic and Palaeogenetic Evidence for Metal Age Mobility in Europe

Two major areas of growth in the landscape of science over the last decade have been genomics and ancient DNA, both fuelled in different ways by the development of “next-generation DNA sequencing” methods since 2005. Both are contributing enormously to our understanding of not only the human past (in the discipline of archaeogenetics) but to the evolutionary history of life on earth more broadly. Indeed, they have come together in some of the most spectacular scientific successes of modern times, including the sequencing of complete genomes from extinct humans, such as Neanderthals. Here we summarise the contribution that these new approaches have made to our knowledge of prehistoric Europe, whilst also emphasizing the continuing significance of earlier approaches developed during the analyses of both classical and non-recombining marker systems.