3,000 years ago the entire human population became extinct. Scientists figured out where they went.

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Here’s what you’ll learn as you read this story:

• The famous Neolithic decline in Northern Europe around 3100 BC has a new scientific explanation.

• Distinct population declines in many areas opened the door for outsiders to resettle with new demographics and cultures.

• An influx of new visitors from the south came after the Iberians began to repopulate the Paris Basin around 2900 BC.

A strange gap in the contents of a 5,000-year-old megalithic tomb outside Paris could explain not only the massive decline in Neolithic populations, but also who stepped in to repopulate the Paris Basin. Bury Cemetery, about 30 miles north of Paris, is a stone burial monument containing the remains of 300 people. Using a combination of DNA and demographics, researchers investigating the graves believe they have discovered why the Paris Basin suffered a dramatic population change around 3100 BC, and who entered the area only to take their place.

In a new study published in the journal Nature, Ecology and Development, An international team of researchers has linked a Paris-area Stone-Age site to a continent-wide demographic crisis. Before the mysterious population decline, megalithic tomb construction defined a wide access area for more than 1,000 years. While each region retained its own cultural touches in burial construction, the cemeteries in Bury were continuous, communal, and held tens of thousands of burials over the centuries. The Paris Basin showed a particularly high concentration of such graves, as did central Germany and southern Scandinavia.

According to new research, construction of these tombs suddenly “ceased in continental northwestern Europe” at the end of the fourth millennium BC. Disruption of millennial burial traditions occurred everywhere—and until now, the cause is unknown.

Research on the Bury Megalith revealed that it represents two distinct phases of burial – the first was from around 3200 to 3100 BC, and the second started around 2900 BC. The 200-year gap in which there were no burials coincided with a wave of population loss across northern Europe, but Neoli fully understood the research. contributed to the complete reconstruction of the region’s population.

By examining DNA evidence from 132 individuals found in Bury, the team discovered that the two distinct historical phases were unrelated. Phase I individuals had genetic diversity that extended beyond the Paris Basin, connecting with farming populations on the continent. Phase II burials, on the other hand, were found in Neolithic Iberia (now Spain and southern France), with more than 80 percent of the group’s ancestors.

Burial styles also differed, with phase one showing evidence of multi-generational families and women marrying from outside the community, while phase two burials included small families and unrelated individuals buried next to each other. With clearly distinct Y chromosome lineages in the second phase, this was not a gradual cultural change, but a dramatic population turnover.

Combined with pollen data (which show regrowth of forests during the interval) and changes in farming practices after the interval, turnover indicates the abandonment of grazing lands and areas, indicating the clearing of settlements. A pattern consistent with the aftermath of the Justinian Plague and the Black Death.

The authors argue that the 3100 BCE decline was geographically widespread, creating a demographic vacuum in northwestern Europe that opened the door for neighboring populations to fill the void. In Scandinavia, steppe pastoralists completely replaced local farmers. In the Paris Basin, Iberian farmers moved into the then empty spaces.

“We can therefore consider the possibility that both the Iberian northward migration and the expansion from the steppe were responses to the Neolithic decline,” the authors wrote, “a widespread demographic contraction that would have created a space into which neighboring groups could expand.”

The first community that defined the Parish Basin was essentially obliterated, but clues to the cause of the obliteration were found in the burial grounds. Researchers discovered ancient pathogens — including plague and louse-borne relapsing fever — in the remains. Experts believe that infectious disease, environmental stress, and demographic contraction all led to widespread demographic collapse. “These findings detail population turnover at the end of the fourth millennium BC,” they wrote, “providing a possible explanation for the end of megalith construction.”

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