In archaeogenetics, the terms Early European Farmers (EEF), First European Farmers (FEF), Neolithic European Farmers or Ancient Aegean Farmers (ANF) are names given to a distinct ancestral component that represents descent from early Neolithic farmers of Europe.
Ancestors of EEFs are believed to have split off from Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHGs) around 43,000 BC, and to have split from Caucasian Hunter-Gatherers (CHGs) around 23,000 BC. They appear to have migrated from Anatolia to the Balkans in large numbers during the 7th millennium BC, where they almost completely replaced the WHGs. The Y-DNA of EEFs was typically types of haplogroup G2a, and to a lesser extent H, T, J, C1a2 and E1b1, while their mtDNA was diverse. In the Balkans, the EEFs appear to have divided into two wings, who expanded further west into Europe along the Danube (Linear Pottery culture) or the western Mediterranean (Cardial Ware). Large parts of Northern Europe and Eastern Europe nevertheless remained unsettled by EEFs. During the Middle Neolithic there was a largely male-driven resurgence of WHG ancestry among many EEF-derived communities, leading to increasing frequencies of the hunter-gatherer paternal haplogroups among them.
During the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age, the EEF-derived cultures of Europe were overwhelmed by successive invasions of Western Steppe Herders (WSHs) from the Pontic–Caspian steppe, who were Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHG) with CHG admixture. These invasions led to EEF Y-DNA in Europe being almost entirely replaced with EHG/WSH Y-DNA (mainly R1b and R1a). EEF mtDNA however remained frequent, suggesting admixture between EHG/WSH males and EEF females. Through subsequent migrations of WSHs into Northern Europe and back into the Eurasian Steppe, EEF mtDNA was brought to new corners of Eurasia.
EEF ancestry remains throughout Europe, ranging from about 60% near the Mediterranean Sea (with a peak of 65% in the island of Sardinia) and diminishing northwards to about 30% around the Baltic Sea.
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