Tracing the DNA timeline, the researchers could see that the hunter-gatherers had been swiftly wiped out by the late Stone Age, in what they suspect was a very bloody and very thorough takeover. "This transition has previously been presented as peaceful," said Anne Birgitte Nielsen, geology researcher and head of the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at Lund University. "However, our study indicates the opposite. In addition to violent death, it is likely that new pathogens from livestock finished off many gatherers."