Fallow deer, once widespread across central Europe during warm interglacials, retreated south during cold glacial periods. Unique preservation conditions in the lake sediments of Neumark Nord – a fossil biotope near Merseburg in Saxony-Anhalt – enabled this rare temperate-climate DNA recovery.
The research team of the University of Potsdam, the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution in Neuwied, part of the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA), and from the Leiden University (Netherlands), was able to extract ancient DNA from ten fallow deer fossils at Neumark-Nord. Strikingly, the single ancient population from Neumark-Nord exhibits genetic diversity comparable to that of today's fallow deer across their entire Eurasian range, from Spain to Turkey. Modern fallow deer also display unusually low variation compared to relatives like red deer or sambar deer.
Phylogenetic reconstructions show contemporary fallow deer being closely related to the ancient Neumark-Nord lineage. “This pattern strongly suggests that multiple diverse genetic lineages once evolved in or colonized central Europe during the Late Pleistocene, but only a single one survived after the end of the ice age” explains Alberto Rocha-Méndez, paleogeneticist at the University of Potsdam and lead author of the study.
Phylogenies date the split between ancient and modern European fallow deer to around 200,000 years ago, amid Middle Pleistocene climate fluctuations. Glacial cooling likely wiped out the diverse northern populations, with survivors only in southern refugia like Anatolia and Balkans. Humans later spread the low-diversity refugial population from Anatolia worldwide during Neolithic, Roman, medieval and modern times.
Due to its deviating anatomy, particularly in antler shape, the fallow deer at Neumark-Nord have long been assigned to their own species or subspecies: Dama (dama) geiselana. The low genetic differentiation to modern fallow deer specimens uncovered in the study, however, rejects a separate status. “The fallow deer once showed high phenotypic variability, but this can be attributed to local adaptation rather than to different genetic lineages” says Lutz Kindler, archaeologist at MONREPOS and co-author of the study. Future work on the full nuclear genome could clarify the species’ demographic history in greater detail.
Background on the excavation site: At the Neumark Nord 1 site, geologist Matthias Thomae discovered a paleolake biotope in 1985, which was excavated and studied by archaeologist Dietrich Mania between 1985 and 1996. According to his findings, there was once a large lake basin at this location, which dates back to the last interglacial 120,000 years ago, known as the Eemian. Between 2004 and 2008, a team from the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) in Mainz and Leiden University investigated another lake basin at the Neumark-Nord 2 site. Research at both locations revealed a unique environmental archive. The finds are now housed at the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt.
Link to Publication: Alberto Rocha-Méndez, Patrick Arnold, Lutz Kindler, Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Wil Roebroeks, Fulco Scherjon, Michael Hofreiter, Eemian palaeogenetics demonstrates loss of diversity in modern fallow deer (Dama dama), 2026, iScience 29, 116204, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2026.116204
Image: Skeleton of an interglacial, ~120,000 years old fallow deer (Dama (dama) geiselana) from Neumark Nord. Copyright: State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt, Photo Juraj Lipták
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Michael Hofreiter, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology
Tel.: +49 331/977-6321
E-Mail: michael.hofreiteruuni-potsdampde
Media Information 04-06-2026 / Nr. 047