Early Alpine occupation backdates westward human migration in Late Glacial Europe

Before the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM,16.5 ka ago)1set in motion major shifts in human cultureand population structure,2a consistent change in lithic technology, material culture, settlement pattern, andadaptive strategies is recorded in Southern Europe at18–17 ka ago. In this time frame, the landscape ofNortheastern Italy changed considerably, and the retreat of glaciers allowed hunter-gatherers to graduallyrecolonize the Alps.3–6Change within this renewed cultural frame (i.e., during the Late Epigravettian phase)is currently associated with migrations favored by warmer climate linked to the Bølling-Allerød onset (14.7 kaago),7–11which replaced earlier genetic lineages with ancestry found in an individual who lived14 ka ago atRiparo Villabruna, Italy, and shared among different contexts (Villabruna Cluster).9Nevertheless, these dy-namics and their chronology are still far from being disentangled due to fragmentary evidence for long-dis-tance interactions across Europe.12Here, we generate new genomic data from a human mandible uncoveredat Riparo Tagliente (Veneto, Italy), which we directly dated to 16,980–16,510 cal BP (2s). This individual,affected by focal osseous dysplasia, is genetically affine to the Villabruna Cluster. Our results therefore back-date by at least 3 ka the diffusion in Southern Europe of a genetic component linked to Balkan/Anatolianrefugia, previously believed to have spread during the later Bølling/Allerød event. In light of the new geneticevidence, this population replacement chronologically coincides with the very emergence of major culturaltransitions in Southern and Western Europe.