5,000-year-old mystery: Scientists discover Stone Age apocalypse in tomb of two peoples

Archaeologists have uncovered a "Stone Age mystery" near Paris, where an ancient megalithic tomb has left them puzzled. The site in Bury, France, has revealed that the stone chamber was where people from two different tribes held burials. The first group came before 3000 BC, and the second one followed them, as seen in the gap between the burials. The discovery shows that a civilisation was quietly replaced by another and would have remained a secret if the analysis of human remains hadn't been done. Frederik V. Seersholm at the Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen (UCPH), led the study where a team of scientists analysed DNA preserved in the teeth of 132 people. They found no relation between the remains from both sides of the gap. The first group belonged to the Stone Age farming groups from northern France and Germany, while the second group of burials has been tied to southern France and Iberia (now Spain and Portugal). “We see a clear genetic break between the two periods,” Seersholm said.

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How did the first Stone Age society collapse?

The bigger question here is what led to the collapse of the first group. Scientists do not have a definite answer yet, although they have put forward a few theories based on the analysis. One of them is that it fell victim to a large-scale disaster, such as war, famine, or an epidemic. The presence of an unusually high number of children and young people buried in the first phase is an indication, the researchers said. But it does not provide clear answers as a tomb is a curated space, and only tells the story of those who were buried, and the true scale of the community's loss likely extended far beyond the stone walls.

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Plague likely spread in the community

Second, a plague-like crisis seemed to be circulating in the community. Scientists identified the plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis) and the relapsing-fever bacterium (Borrelia recurrentis) in the remains found at Bury. But they weren't widespread enough to be called the sole cause. However, it confirms that deadly pathogens were circulating in the community. Evidence for environmental stress has also been found in the pollen analysis from the surrounding Paris Basin. During the gap between burials, forests started growing back, which shows that the land was no longer being farmed. Scientists say their findings show that there was a certain stress that mattered to society.

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The two groups used the tomb in different ways. In the first group, 55 out of 72 people were found buried near a close relative, suggesting close-knit family ties. But this number reduced to 21 in the second group, and the single male lineage became dominant. The tomb in France is testimony to the population replacement, a biological record of a Stone Age community that fully collapsed, with a new group reclaiming their land years later.