Ancient DNA Atlas
The Atlas is a guided index of 24 well-known ancient populations — from Ice Age foragers to steppe pastoralists and Iron Age nomads — built on 1,283 published ancient-DNA samples. Open any population to see its representative individuals and explore them on Kvali's interactive G25 map, with genetic-distance search and guided Ancestry Stories.
Early Neolithic (c. 5,500–4,500 BCE)
Europe's first widespread farming culture, spreading Anatolian-derived ancestry from the Carpathian Basin to the Paris Basin.
152 samples · Central Europe
Neolithic (c. 7,100–5,700 BCE)
Early Anatolian farmers, including the famous proto-city of Çatalhöyük, who carried the ancestry that spread farming across Europe.
107 samples · central Anatolia
Eneolithic (c. 5,200–4,000 BCE)
Volga steppe herders whose ancestry feeds directly into the later Yamnaya and the steppe expansions.
71 samples · the middle Volga steppe
Mesolithic (c. 9,500–6,000 BCE)
Riverine foragers of the Danube gorge, famous for the Lepenski Vir settlements and a distinctive mix of eastern and western hunter-gatherer ancestry.
55 samples · the Danube's Iron Gates gorge (Serbia and Romania)
Early Neolithic (c. 6,200–5,200 BCE)
Balkan early farmers ancestral to, and contemporary with, the first Neolithic communities of temperate Europe.
21 samples · the central Balkans
Mesolithic to Neolithic (c. 14,000–300 BCE)
A long-lived hunter-gatherer-fisher culture whose deeply divergent ancestry still contributes to modern Japanese populations.
17 samples · the Japanese archipelago
Upper Paleolithic (c. 21,000–10,000 BCE)
Late Ice Age foragers of southern Europe whose lineage largely replaced earlier European hunter-gatherers after the Last Glacial Maximum.
13 samples · Italy and the Balkans
Epipaleolithic (c. 12,500–9,500 BCE)
Among the earliest sedentary hunter-gatherers, the Natufians of the Levant sit close to the ancestral root of later Near Eastern farmers.
6 samples · the Levant
Late Neolithic (c. 4,900–3,400 BCE)
A Late Neolithic complex of the middle Danube known for painted pottery and large enclosures.
2 samples · Central Europe
Early Bronze Age (c. 3,300–2,600 BCE)
Mobile steppe pastoralists whose massive expansion reshaped the ancestry of Europe and Central Asia and is tied to the spread of Indo-European languages.
215 samples · the Pontic–Caspian steppe
Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age (c. 3,000–2,350 BCE)
The European heirs of the steppe expansion, carrying a large dose of Yamnaya-related ancestry across the North European Plain.
105 samples · Central and Northern Europe
Copper Age (c. 4,300–3,800 BCE)
A Copper Age culture of the northwestern Balkans and Alpine foreland.
43 samples · the western Balkans and eastern Alps
Copper Age (c. 4,000–3,600 BCE)
A Copper Age culture of the Carpathian Basin known for copper metallurgy and gold ornaments.
33 samples · the Carpathian Basin
Copper Age (c. 4,600–4,200 BCE)
Home to the oldest gold treasure in the world, Varna reflects an early stratified society on the Black Sea coast.
17 samples · the western Black Sea coast
Archaic to Classic (c. 3,400 BCE–900 CE)
Ancient individuals from the Maya region documenting the shift from Archaic foragers to maize agriculturalists in Mesoamerica.
16 samples · Mesoamerica (Belize)
Copper Age (c. 4,700–3,900 BCE)
A rich Copper Age culture of the lower Danube and Balkans, part of the "Old Europe" tell civilisation.
1 samples · the lower Danube
Late Iron Age (c. 450–1 BCE)
The later Celtic culture of Iron Age Europe, spanning Gaul, Britain and Central Europe with its distinctive art style.
161 samples · temperate Europe
Early Iron Age (c. 800–450 BCE)
The early Iron Age culture of the eastern Alps and its salt-mining elites, associated with the emergence of the Celtic world.
111 samples · Central Europe
Iron Age (c. 860–590 BCE)
The kingdom of Urartu around Lake Van, a major Iron Age power of the Armenian highlands.
51 samples · the Armenian highlands
Iron Age (c. 400 BCE–400 CE)
Steppe nomads who succeeded the Scythians on the Pontic steppe and clashed with the Roman world.
34 samples · the western Eurasian steppe
Iron Age (c. 1,200–300 BCE)
Levantine seafaring traders whose colonies, including Carthage, spread their ancestry across the Mediterranean.
16 samples · the Levantine coast and Mediterranean colonies
Iron Age (c. 200 BCE–100 CE)
A powerful and genetically diverse nomadic empire of the eastern steppe, a rival of Han China.
15 samples · the Mongolian steppe
Viking Age (c. 750–1,100 CE)
Scandinavian and Rus-associated individuals of the Viking Age, from Baltic trade routes to eastern river networks.
16 samples · Northern and Eastern Europe
Early Medieval (c. 500–1,000 CE)
Early medieval populations tied to the Slavic expansion across Central and Eastern Europe.
5 samples · East-Central Europe