"Conclusion: what paleogenetics excludesUnfortunately this whole exercise has failed to identify at its outset a useful research aim. It asks, in all seriousness, the question whether the population of EUROPE came "from Atlantis". The only bodies of genetic material examined are European. So basically what they are addressing are the very anachronistic views of writers such as Ignatius Donnelly (1831–1901) and Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) - questions long ago already answered by science.
Paleogenetics now allows several precise versions of the Atlantis hypotheses to be excluded. First, it excludes the existence of a pre-Neolithic advanced maritime Atlantic civilization that left demographically traceable descendants: no European or Mediterranean population carries an unexplained ancestral component corresponding to a pre-7000 BCE Atlantic source. Second, it excludes the identification of Tartessos as a genetically distinct civilization: the studied Tartessian individual is a normal local descendant. Third, it excludes the identification of the Minoans as an exotic population: their profile derives cleanly from documented Aegean sources. Fourth, it excludes the identification of Doggerland as a lost civilization: its inhabitants were ordinary Western hunter-gatherers. What paleogenetics cannot exclude is the allegorical interpretation of Plato (which most classical scholars have favored since Antiquity), nor the idea that the Atlantis account reflects, in distorted form, the memory of real natural events (Santorini eruption, Doggerland submersion, Storegga tsunami, decline of Tartessos) that impressed the oral sources transmitted to Plato. Paleogenetics eliminates versions of the hypothesis that assume a distinct demography; it leaves intact the purely cultural, allegorical, or symbolic versions."
Very few later writers are claiming that Europe was colonised by Atlantis. Those that do situate that mythical fantasy-island in Europe, so there were German nationalists such as
Albert Hermann (1886–1945) and Dutch-German pseudohistorian Herman Wirth (1885-1981) who linked the process of civilization of Europe with Aryan ("German) colonisers. In more modern times we only have a few devotees of hyperdiffusionism such as Paul Dunbavin ('Atlantis of the West: The Case For Britain's Drowned Megalithic Civilization' 2003), argueing that Atlantis was a large island that once existed in the Irish Sea and that a comet impact caused a pole shift that changed the Earth's axis around 3100 BC and this somehow led to the Neolithic civilization on ythe island being drowned out by rising sea levels and this led to its inhabitants colonising Europe (a sort of a reversed Hancockism). Swedish geographer Dr. Ulf Erlingsson ('Atlantis from a Geographer's Perspective: Mapping the Fairy Land' 2004) proposes that Atlantis had been located in Ireland. None of these ideas are mainstream, even in pseudo-archaeology or pseudo-history circles. So it is not cler what, or who is being "debunked" in this out-of-touch article.
The article does not address Graham Hancock’s influential "Lost Allerød antecedent Civilization" hypothesis, because it merely focuses on Bronze/Iron Age, region-specific theories rather than pre-Younger Dryas (before 10,800 BCE) narratives. To directly address Graham Hancock’s specific hypothesis, a scientific critique or article would have to pivot away from Bronze Age Mediterranean archeology and instead target his specific timelines, mechanisms, and geographic models. To address Hancock’s claims, the article would need to analyze early Palaeolithic genomes on a far wider scale than we see here.
Hancock does not usually argue that an advanced civilization mass-migrated into Europe or the Americas. Instead, he claims a few highly advanced survivors from the collapse of his postlated "Lost Allerød antecedent Civilization" at the beginning of the Younger Dryas travelled the world to teach local hunter-gatherers agriculture, astronomy, and architecture. What is needed to examine this theory by genetic means is to show the degree of unexplained trace ancestry of 10,000–9,000 BCE populations (like those at Göbekli Tepe or early South American sites)to determine the degree that these populations are descended from known, local Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, or whether there are traces at the time of a social or cultural change of an "introgression" or "founder event" from a mysterious, technologically advanced third party.
The article does not address Graham Hancock’s influential "Lost Allerød antecedent Civilization" hypothesis, because it merely focuses on Bronze/Iron Age, region-specific theories rather than pre-Younger Dryas (before 10,800 BCE) narratives. To directly address Graham Hancock’s specific hypothesis, a scientific critique or article would have to pivot away from Bronze Age Mediterranean archeology and instead target his specific timelines, mechanisms, and geographic models. To address Hancock’s claims, the article would need to analyze early Palaeolithic genomes on a far wider scale than we see here.
Hancock does not usually argue that an advanced civilization mass-migrated into Europe or the Americas. Instead, he claims a few highly advanced survivors from the collapse of his postlated "Lost Allerød antecedent Civilization" at the beginning of the Younger Dryas travelled the world to teach local hunter-gatherers agriculture, astronomy, and architecture. What is needed to examine this theory by genetic means is to show the degree of unexplained trace ancestry of 10,000–9,000 BCE populations (like those at Göbekli Tepe or early South American sites)to determine the degree that these populations are descended from known, local Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, or whether there are traces at the time of a social or cultural change of an "introgression" or "founder event" from a mysterious, technologically advanced third party.
This needs testing for all the global hotspots Hancock highlights (such as Indonesia/Sundaland, the Amazon basin, and southeastern Anatolia). Genetic testing would need to show the degree to which, right before and during the postulated “Younger Dryas cataclysm”, there was sudden, widespread population mixing or genetic bottleneck that would indicate a global maritime network collapsing and dispersing.
Since Hancock implies that (“the idea of”) agriculture was gifted to humanity by this lost civilization after the postulated cataclysm, another approach would be through tracking the genetics of domesticated crops and animals. The paleogenomics of early domesticates (like einkorn wheat in Anatolia or maize ancestors in the Americas) needs to show to what degree the genetic wild-to-domestic transition in these plants happened gradually over thousands of years via local gathering, as opposed to the degree to which it shows a sudden, genetically engineered, or fully "pre-developed" introduction from an unknown botanical source.
Hancock has argued that his postulated “lost civilization” is today lost to sight because it flourished on landmasses that are now underwater due to post-glacial sea-level rise (like the drowned continent of Sundaland in Southeast Asia) or shifted by crustal displacement (Antarctica). A critique would need to look at the genetics of pre- and post- Younger Dryas populations living on the edges of these regions (e.g., modern and ancient genomic data from maritime Southeast Asia, Australia, and southernmost South America). This would show the degree to which these populations lack any shared, highly distinct "ghost" DNA component that would link them to a singular, central, highly developed maritime empire that sunk beneath the waves.
Since Hancock implies that (“the idea of”) agriculture was gifted to humanity by this lost civilization after the postulated cataclysm, another approach would be through tracking the genetics of domesticated crops and animals. The paleogenomics of early domesticates (like einkorn wheat in Anatolia or maize ancestors in the Americas) needs to show to what degree the genetic wild-to-domestic transition in these plants happened gradually over thousands of years via local gathering, as opposed to the degree to which it shows a sudden, genetically engineered, or fully "pre-developed" introduction from an unknown botanical source.
Hancock has argued that his postulated “lost civilization” is today lost to sight because it flourished on landmasses that are now underwater due to post-glacial sea-level rise (like the drowned continent of Sundaland in Southeast Asia) or shifted by crustal displacement (Antarctica). A critique would need to look at the genetics of pre- and post- Younger Dryas populations living on the edges of these regions (e.g., modern and ancient genomic data from maritime Southeast Asia, Australia, and southernmost South America). This would show the degree to which these populations lack any shared, highly distinct "ghost" DNA component that would link them to a singular, central, highly developed maritime empire that sunk beneath the waves.
