Why did Europe's hunter-gatherers disappear?

Researchers don't yet know the exact set of circumstances that drove Europe's hunter-gatherers to disappear, but their decline broadly coincided with the spread of farming in the region.

Europe's hunter-gatherers weren't a single entity but a series of different human populations and cultures who survived by hunting animals and foraging for wild food.

This was the case for most hunter-gatherers across Europe after 14,000 years ago, while the farmers of the time had lighter skin and dark eyes, Posth said.

A 2024 study published in the journal PLOS One found that a farming community in Denmark violently sacrificed a male hunter-gatherer from Norway or Sweden around 5,200 years ago.

Ritual sacrifice wasn't necessarily a punishment for the hunter-gatherer, and he may have been an immigrant or trader who gained equal social standing among the farmers, or he may have been a captive or enslaved person, the study authors noted.

Anders Fischer, an independent archeologist and author of both studies, told Live Science the farmers rapidly grew in numbers as they spread and may have been "war-like" in their approach to the hunter-gatherers.