A new study combines genetic traces recovered from cave sediment with DNA from ancient remains to explore long-distance contact and survival in Ice Age Europe.
How do you find the genetic history of
people whose bones are missing? In a cave in northern Spain, scientists have
recovered thousands of genetic markers from a layer of soil almost 22,000 years
old. No human bones or teeth were found in that layer. The evidence was
preserved in the sediment itself.
The finding is part of a study published on
23 October 2026 in Science Advances. Researchers led by the University of
Vienna combined new genomic data from three ancient individuals with human DNA
recovered from cave sediment. Their results point to two things that can seem
contradictory: people in Ice Age Europe exchanged ancestry across long
distances, while some ancestry also remained present in the southwest of the
continent for thousands of years.
The story starts with a handful of genetic
traces in the ground. It ends with a more connected picture of Europe before
and during one of the coldest periods of the last Ice Age.
Archaeological work inside El Mirón Cave
in Cantabria, northern Spain. This archival photograph shows the cave’s
excavation setting, not the precise sediment sample used in the 2026 study.
Photo: Gabinete de Prensa del Gobierno de Cantabria, via Wikimedia Commons, CC
BY 3.0. Image source | CC
BY 3.0
The clue in a layer of cave soil
El Mirón Cave lies in Cantabria, in
northern Spain. Archaeologists have excavated the cave for decades, uncovering
a long sequence of occupation and deposits. The layers preserve evidence of
changing human activity, from tools and animal remains to traces of material
that is difficult to identify by eye.
Researchers can sometimes recover ancient
DNA from sediment even when the bones or teeth of the people who left it are
missing. The DNA may have entered the ground through biological material such
as cells or bodily fluids. Over time, it breaks into small fragments.
Scientists then have to separate ancient genetic material from contamination
and test whether the evidence is reliable.
That is a demanding job. The amount of DNA
can be tiny, and not every fragment can be trusted. Its age, pattern of damage,
and archaeological context all matter. But when enough reliable fragments
survive, sediment can reveal genetic information from a period for which no
human remains have been recovered.
At El Mirón, the new study analysed
sediment from a layer known as Solutrean Layer 122, dated to about 22,000
calibrated years ago. The team recovered around 14,000 human single-nucleotide
polymorphisms, usually shortened to SNPs. These are small variations in DNA
that researchers can compare across samples to investigate ancestry.
Fourteen thousand markers do not amount to
a complete human genome. They were, however, enough to make a meaningful
comparison with other ancient genetic data. That is the first turn in this
story: a layer without human bones or teeth has still preserved evidence of
ancestry.
This was not the first DNA found at El Mirón
The result builds on earlier work at the
same cave. A 2025 study in Nature Communications examined sedimentary ancient
DNA from a wider sequence of El Mirón deposits. It identified genetic material
from humans and numerous animal species. That study recovered three human
mitochondrial DNA sequences from Solutrean layers and found evidence consistent
with continuity in a maternal genetic lineage across this period.
Mitochondrial DNA is passed down primarily
through the maternal line. It can help researchers follow one strand of
ancestry, but it does not tell the whole story of a population. The 2026
analysis goes further by examining nuclear DNA markers from Layer 122. These
provide a broader set of comparisons and strengthen the evidence about ancestry
during the Last Glacial Maximum.
The distinction is important. The 2025
study established that human DNA could be recovered from El Mirón sediment and
traced particular mitochondrial lineages. The new study reports a much larger
set of nuclear genetic markers from a layer around 22,000 years old. The two
studies are related, but they are not the same result.
A woman from France connects east and west
The El Mirón sample is only one part of the
new research. The team also analysed genome-wide data from three people
associated with the Gravettian period: a woman from Isturitz Cave in
southwestern France, an individual from Chufín Cave in northern Spain, and a
male fetus from Ostuni in southern Italy. They compared these data with
previously published ancient genomes.
The Gravettian was a widespread
archaeological culture, recognised through its tools and other material
evidence, that existed across Europe roughly 34,000 to 25,000 years ago. It
should not be imagined as a single nation or a uniform biological population.
The people associated with it lived across a large area, and their
relationships are still being reconstructed.
An engraved scapula from El Mirón Cave
showing the outline of a deer’s head. The original record dates the artefact to
the Lower Magdalenian, around 17,000 years ago. It illustrates the cave’s wider
archaeological record; it was not the source of DNA in the study. Photo: Jesús
Munguía / Gobierno de Cantabria, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0. Image source | CC
BY 3.0
The woman from Isturitz lived around 30,000
years ago. Her remains provided the oldest genome-wide dataset then available
for a modern human from southwestern Europe. Most of her ancestry was related
to a western European lineage, but her DNA also carried ancestry related to
populations in central and eastern Europe.
Using genetic modelling, the researchers
estimated that the gene flow behind this signal occurred around 32,500 to
31,500 years ago. That date describes the inferred exchange of ancestry, not
necessarily the woman’s own travels. Her genome suggests that the histories of
western and eastern populations were connected, even when the communities
involved lived far apart.
A similar signal had been identified in an
individual from Ormesson in France. Alongside archaeological evidence, the new
results raise the possibility that Isturitz was a place where groups met. DNA
cannot show exactly who travelled where, or whether the woman herself moved
across Europe. It does show that ancestry linked to populations in different
regions came together.
Movement did not mean everyone moved on
If people exchanged ancestry across long
distances, did populations in western Europe simply disappear and get replaced?
The study points to a more complicated picture.
Genomic data from Chufín Cave in northern
Spain indicate that western European ancestry persisted in the region over
thousands of years. The nuclear DNA from El Mirón adds evidence that ancestry
related to the Fournol genetic lineage was still present in southwestern Europe
during the Last Glacial Maximum.
The Last Glacial Maximum lasted roughly
from 26,500 to 19,000 years ago. Temperatures were lower, ice sheets expanded
across large areas of the Northern Hemisphere, and the places where people
could live were shaped by changing climate and resources. The Iberian Peninsula
is often described as one of the refuges where people and animals survived
through this period.
The El Mirón layer dates to about 22,000
years ago, within the Last Glacial Maximum. Read alongside genomes from other
periods and sites, its DNA supports the persistence of Fournol-related ancestry
in southwestern Europe during this difficult time.
This does not mean that the same community
stayed in one place without interruption, or that everyone in the region shared
identical ancestry. Genetic continuity is not the same as complete isolation.
The point is that long-distance exchange and regional continuity could happen
at the same time.
A family clue from southern Italy
The study also examined Ostuni1b, a male
fetus from southern Italy who was probably the son of a woman whose remains had
been studied earlier. The genetic evidence suggests that the fetus’s parents
were not closely related, even though they likely belonged to the same broad
genetic population.
That is a small but telling glimpse into
life in the Gravettian period. It helps researchers investigate how closely
related people were within a population. It cannot, on its own, reveal a
community’s marriage customs or social rules. For that, genetic results need to
be considered alongside other evidence.
What DNA can tell us, and what it cannot
Ancient DNA is powerful because it can
reveal relationships that objects alone cannot establish. Similar stone tools
may point to contact, shared learning or movement, but they do not prove that
two groups were genetically related. DNA adds another kind of evidence to the
archaeological record.
It also has limits. A genetic ancestry
signal cannot tell us what language someone spoke, what name they used for
themselves, or how they understood their place in the world. It cannot prove
that a particular person followed a specific route, and it does not map neatly
onto modern ideas of race or national identity. The Gravettian is an
archaeological category, not a label for one people with a single identity.
Sediment also needs careful handling.
Researchers must rule out contamination, understand how the layer formed, and
consider whether material could have moved through the deposits. The strongest
interpretation comes when genetic evidence agrees with reliable dating and the
wider archaeological context.
None of this makes the discovery less
exciting. It makes the result more useful. The researchers have not recovered a
complete biography from a cave floor. They have recovered enough evidence to
test a question that would otherwise have remained difficult to answer.
The past left more behind than bones
Return to the layer at El Mirón. There are
no human bones or teeth from that layer to sequence. Yet sediment preserved
enough genetic material for researchers to compare its ancestry with the DNA of
people who lived thousands of years earlier and across Europe.
The result adds detail to a picture of Ice
Age Europe in which people were neither completely isolated nor constantly
replaced. Groups exchanged ancestry over long distances. Some ancestry
persisted in southwestern Europe through a period of severe climatic stress.
The evidence comes from different sites, different kinds of samples and
different points in time, so the story has to be assembled piece by piece.
For years, the ground at El Mirón was
studied through the objects and remains it preserved. Now it is also yielding
genetic evidence from people whose bones were not found in the layer. The
discovery does not answer every question about their lives, but it gives
archaeologists a new way to ask questions that once seemed impossible.