His world ended not through dramatic conquest but through the slow demographic pressure of a more productive subsistence system.

The Bronze Age Transformation: The Third Wave

The genetic history of British populations involves not two but three major population episodes during the time when genetic history is recoverable.

After the Neolithic farmers — who brought lighter pigmentation, the ability to raise livestock and crops, and the construction of megalithic monuments — came a third major population movement, beginning roughly 5,000 years ago.

This third wave came from the east: from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, the vast grassland north of the Black Sea that is now part of Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan.