5,700-year-old human remains studied to create world’s oldest family tree in UK

Researchers analysed DNA from a 5,700-year-old tomb to discover the world’s oldest family tree. This has thrown amazing light on agricultural and family life among the first farmers of Britain.

Scientists examined the teeth and bones of 35 people in a neolithic tomb at Hazleton, in the Cotswolds, which is one of the best-preserved graves in the UK. According to Newcastle University’s Dr Chris Fowler, the results are astounding. Twenty-seven of the participants were biological relatives from a single extended family that spanned five generations. Four women had children with the same father, therefore many of them were related by blood.

On the project, geneticists from Harvard University, Vienna University, and the University of the Basque Country collaborated with researchers from Newcastle, Central Lancashire, Exeter, and York Universities. The first comprehensive picture of prehistoric family systems is presented in this study, which was published in Nature.

This ancient tribe flourished circa 3700–3600BC, some 100 years after livestock and cereal cultivation were introduced to Britain from continental Europe, and were some of Britain’s earliest farmers. The most renowned Neolithic structure, Stonehenge, would not be completed for another 700 years.

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According to research, the dead were buried in Hazleton North long cairn according to the ladies from whom they descended. As a result, the study concluded, these first-generation women were socially significant in the community recollections.

As they went over the countryside, the humans most likely herded animals. Their diet was high in dairy and protein, and they cooked and stored their meals in pots. According to new study, they valued family relationships as well.

As per Fowler, the discovery is important because it helps us to observe what was going on in the Neolithic culture. They are tracing their genealogy and looking to the future as a group by doing such funeral customs.