A new study from the University of Leicester has found that most men in Europe descend¹ from起源于 the first farmers who migrated from the Near East 10,000 years ago. The findings are published January 19 in the open-access journal PLoS Biology. The invention of farming is perhaps the most important cultural change in the history of modern humans. Increased food production led to the development of societies that stayed put留在原处不动, rather than wandering in search of food. The resulting population growth culminated² in达到顶点 the seven billion people who now live on the planet. In Europe, farming spread from the 'Fertile Crescent', a region extending from the eastern Mediterranean³ coast to the Persian Gulf⁴ and including the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.

There has been much debate about whether the westerly向西的 spread of agriculture from the Near East was driven by farmers actually migrating, or by the transfer of ideas and technologies to indigenous⁵本土的，国产的 hunter-gatherers. Now, researchers have studied the genetic⁶ diversity of modern populations to throw light on the processes involved in these ancient events.

The new study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, examines the diversity of the Y chromosome染色体, which is passed from father to son. Mark Jobling, who led the research, said: "We focused on the commonest Y-chromosome⁷ lineage in Europe, carried by about 110 million men – it follows a gradient倾斜的，步行的 from south-east to north-west, reaching almost 100% frequency in Ireland. We looked at how the lineage血统，家系 is distributed, how diverse it is in different parts of Europe, and how old it is." The results suggested that the lineage spread together with farming from the Near East.

Dr Patricia Balaresque, first author of the study, added: "In total, this means that more than 80% of European Y chromosomes⁸ descend from incoming farmers. In contrast, most maternal⁹ genetic lineages seem to descend from hunter-gatherers. To us, this suggests a reproductive advantage for farming males over indigenous hunter-gatherer males during the switch from hunting and gathering¹⁰, to farming – maybe, back then, it was just sexier to be a farmer."