Eastern hunter-gatherer

In archaeogenetics, eastern hunter-gatherers (EHG), sometimes called east European hunter-gatherers or eastern European hunter-gatherers, are a distinct ancestral component which represents the Mesolithichunter-gatherers of Eastern Europe.

The eastern hunter-gatherer genetic profile is mainly derived from Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry, which was introduced from Siberia, with a secondary and smaller admixture of European western hunter-gatherers (WHG). However, the relationship between the ANE and EHG ancestral components is not yet well-understood due to lack of samples that could bridge the spatiotemporal gap.

During the Mesolithic era, the EHGs inhabited an area which stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains, and southward to the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Along with Scandinavian hunter-gatherers (SHG) and western hunter-gatherers (WHG), the EHGs constituted one of the three main genetic groups in the postglacial period of early Holocene Europe. The border between WHGs and EHGs ran roughly from the lower Danube, northward along the western forests of the Dnieper towards the western Baltic Sea.

During the Neolithic and early Eneolithic eras, EHGs on the Pontic–Caspian steppe mixed with Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHGs), with the resulting population, which was almost half-EHG and half-CHG, forming the genetic cluster that is known as Western Steppe Herder (WSH). WSH populations that were closely related to the people of the Yamnaya culture embarked upon a massive migration which lead to the spread of Indo-European languages throughout large parts of Eurasia.