It is now widely accepted that agriculture and settled village life arrived in Europe as a cultural package, carried by people migrating from Anatolia and the Aegean Basin. The putative fisher-forager site of Lepenski Vir in Serbia has long been acknowledged as an exception to this model. Here, the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition—possibly inspired by interaction with the new arrivals—was thought to have taken place autochthonously on site. Our reinterpretation, based on ancient genomes, as well as archaeological and isotopic evidence, indicates that here, too, house construction, early village society and agriculture were primarily associated with Europe’s first farmers, thus challenging the long-held view of Lepenski Vir as a Mesolithic community that adopted Neolithic practices. Although aspects of the site's occupation, such as the trapezoidal houses, were inspired by local Mesolithic traditions, it is far from certain that the village was founded by Iron Gates foragers. A detailed timeline of population changes at the site suggests that Aegean incomers did not simply integrate into an established Mesolithic society, but rather founded new lineages and households. Iron Gates foragers and their admixed descendants largely appear to have been buried separately, on the fringes of the settlement. The diet of those buried outside in pits shows no major shift from aquatic to terrestrial food resources.

现在人们普遍认为，农业和定居的乡村生活是作为一种文化包传入欧洲的，是由来自安纳托利亚和爱琴海盆地的移民携带的。塞尔维亚莱彭斯基维尔 (Lepenski Vir) 假定的渔民采集地长期以来一直被认为是这种模式的一个例外。在这里，中石器时代-新石器时代的转变——可能是受到与新来者的互动的启发——被认为是在现场自然发生的。我们基于古代基因组以及考古和同位素证据的重新解释表明，这里的房屋建造、早期村庄社会和农业也主要与欧洲第一批农民有关，从而挑战了长期以来人们对 Lepenski Vir 的看法。采用新石器时代习俗的中石器社会。尽管该遗址的某些用途（例如梯形房屋）受到当地中石器时代传统的启发，但仍无法确定该村庄是否是由铁门采集者建立的。该遗址人口变化的详细时间表表明，爱琴海的收入者并非简单地融入了既定的中石器时代社会，而是建立了新的血统和家庭。铁门采集者和他们的混血后代大多被单独埋葬在定居点的边缘。那些埋在坑外的人的饮食没有显示出从水生食物资源到陆生食物资源的重大转变。