Almost the entire British population was replaced by newcomers about 4500 years ago. A study analysing DNA from ancient human remains has shown that only around 10% of the ancestry of modern Britons (those who are descended mainly from the ethnic groups that settled in Britain in and before the 11th century) can be traced back to the people who inhabited Britain before that time. The newcomers are known as the “Beaker people”, after the bell-shaped pots they made. Beaker people have been excavated from graves in Britain for many years, but, until now, it was not known whether they were natives or newcomers. Now, as a result of an international project involving hundreds of scientists and archaeologists, we know the answer. Using samples from more than 400 skeletons from across Europe, the researchers have shown that the Beaker people had different genes from the native population. They were part of a new wave of migration that swept across the continent.

Neolithic Britain

About 10,000 years ago, when the ice sheet covering Britain finally retreated at the end of the Ice Ages, people started to arrive in Britain. They lived by hunting and gathering until agriculture was introduced from continental Europe about 6000 years ago (4000 BC). Whether the practice of farming crops was adopted by the natives or brought by immigrants is still not known. This time is known as the beginning of the Neolithic period.

The Neolithic farmers built giant stone structures such as Stonehenge, huge earth mounds such as Silbury Hill and settlements such as Skara Brae in the Orkneys.

Towards the end of the Neolithic, about 2500 BC, a new way of life spread to Britain from Europe. People began burying their dead with bell-shaped pots (beakers), copper daggers, arrowheads and other ornaments. This Beaker tradition probably started on the Iberian peninsula (today’s Spain and Portugal) and spread to central Europe. From there, Beaker people travelled in all directions, overrunning the native peoples in Britain and other lands. The newcomers’ own ancestry was from nomadic groups on the steppe grasslands of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, a region extending from Ukraine to Kazakhstan. These nomads had moved west during the Neolithic, mixing with established populations in Europe.

The Beaker people introduced modest-sized "barrows", or earth burial mounds, for their honoured dead. They were also responsible for introducing metalworking to Britain, beginning what is known as the Bronze Age.