Johannes Krause (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) and his research team analyzed more than 200 ancient human genomes spanning the last 10,000 years of Western Eurasian pre-history. They found direct evidence for two major genetic turnover events at the beginning and at the end of the Neolithic time period in Europe, which they attribute to two major migrations. This explains why all modern European populations are a genetic mixture of steppe pastoralist, early farmers and indigenous European hunter-gatherers in varying proportion. This genetic mixture together with local biological adaptation has led to major changes in human phenotypes such as eye color, skin color, and the ability to digest milk sugar over the past 10,000 years. (#30982)