The early farmers who spread from Anatolia into Europe, beginning around 7000 to 8000 years ago, were genetically distinct from the hunter-gatherers who already lived in Europe.

These hunter-gatherers — sometimes called Western Hunter-Gatherers or WHG — had their own distinctive genetic heritage, derived from the populations that had inhabited Europe during the Ice Age.

As Neolithic farmers spread through Europe, they encountered and, over time, mixed with these existing hunter-gatherer populations.

The degree of mixing varied by region and time period, but it was nearly universal across Europe: almost all analyzed Neolithic and Copper Age European individuals show some mixture of Anatolian farmer ancestry and hunter-gatherer ancestry, with the specific proportions varying across the geographic and temporal range.

Ötzi’s near-absence of hunter-gatherer ancestry — more than 92 percent Anatolian farmer, leaving less than 8 percent for hunter-gatherer and any other ancestral components — is thus genuinely unusual.