NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – By analyzing more than three dozen ancient genomes from the Baltic Sea region, researchers have been trying to put together a picture of the prehistoric population history of the area. Sweden, they found, was likely settled in two waves, one from the north and one from the south.

The eastern Baltic and Scandinavia were first settled by foragers about 11,000 years ago as glacial ice sheets there retreated, and farmers arrived in the region about 6,000 years ago during the Early Neolithic Period, 1,000 years later than in Central Europe.