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A new research, using DNA to map the history of human migration, showed how a pattern of genetic replacement took place across several millennia in a region of central Europe.

The study proves the picture of Europeans as a simple mixture of native hunters arriving seven thousand years ago.

DNA was analysed from 364 skeletons that were unearthed in Germany, BBC reports.

“This is the largest and most detailed genetic time series of Europe yet created, allowing us to establish a complete genetic chronology,” said co-author Dr Wolfgang Haak of the Australian Centre for DNA (ACAD) according to BBC.

“Focusing on this small but highly important geographic region meant we could generate a gapless record, and directly observe genetic changes in ‘real-time’ from 7,500 to 3,500 years ago, from the earliest farmers to the early Bronze Age, ” he added.

Dr Haak along with his colleagues analysed the DNA extracted mainly from the teeth and bones from remains that were well preserved. Their focus was on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that carries genetic information in the cell’s batteries.

MtDNA is naturally passed down from a mother to her children. This allows geneticists to prove the maternal histories.

The research findings show that the natively hunter in Central Europe were edged out by incomers from modern Turkey also known as Anatolia around 7,500 years ago.

“In some ways agriculture was an obvious and easy way to go in the Fertile Crescent. But once you take it out of there, it involves an abrupt shift in lifestyle,” said Dr Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project and an Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic according to BBC.

“They were basically taking crops that had evolved over millions of years in the Middle East and were adapted to that dry-wet pattern of seasonality and moving them into an area that was recently de-glaciated. It was no trivial thing to transfer crops such as barley and rye to the northern fringes of Europe, ” Dr Wells added.

The findings have been published in Science journal.