The Barbarians - Peter Bogucki

A history of Europeans from the late Stone Age through to the end of the Roman period.  In the Roman stage, the "barbarians" refers largely to the Germanic and Celtic speaking groups outside the Roman Empire.  This book is essentially a reworking of the image of "the barbarian" as inherited from roman authors of antiquity.
The Barbarians were farming peoples living in small villages or settlements.  Farmers, not warriors really.  They operated complex trade networks with goods of all types moving great distances, both luxury goods and goods for manufacturing and metal work.  People also moved great distances, especially during the Bronze age, when there seems to have been a fair bit of cultural and linguistic unity across Europe, at least for some groups.
Bogucki also offers a more nuanced account of the relationship between Rome and the groups beyond its borders.  Thought there was some raiding and mayhem, the relationship by and large was one of trade and economic advantage to both sides.  The borders were porous both for traders and Germanic speaking mercenaries seeking employment.
The book also calls into question the movement of large groups of people (like the Visigoths) immediately after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west.  Apparently there is no archaeological evidence for a period of mayhem and cultural/artifact shift.  Maybe it was bands of warriors moving about looking for good places to set up as small independent kingdoms - opportunities for "protection rackets"  ie.  You feed me, house me, provide me with booze, and I'll protect you from others (and myself).
This lack of big shifts could also explain what I have read elsewhere ie. that the Dark Age wasn't really so dark.  It marked a continuation of Barbarian Iron Age culture, with small villages and towns, complex trade networks and a farming economy.  (Just the Roman thing disappeared:  certain luxury goods, and large towns - which Germanic tribes has never really been interested in.)

Overall, an interesting different take on an interesting, creative ( though illiterate) culture in an interesting era of change.

My European Family: the first 54,000 years - Karin Bojs

Set as a personal genealogy explored through a DNA history of Europe from the Neolithic period.  (The personal setting doesn't sit so well with the scientific basis, in my mind anyway.  Would have been better as a straight out popular science book.)
Brings up a number of interesting points about European history and also about archaeology as a discipline.
First, DNA evidence seems to indicate that farming was carried into the whole of Europe by immigrants from modern day Syria and Turkey ie.  the place where farming seems to have originated.  Early farmers have radically different DNA from the local hunters and gatherers in the period where farming first moved into areas in Europe.  Later, the groups seem to have mixed as the hunters moved into the farming communities.

Many people carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA, so Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon people mated in some way.  The fact that so many carry a small part of this DNA would indicate that the early mixed individuals had a better survival rate than those without the Neanderthal DNA.  Perhaps some adaptation to cold climates, as the Neanderthals had been living in this kind of environment for millennia.

Every living human being's mitochondrial DNA comes from a single female way back in history! Apparently, at some point we almost died out as a species?

There were several waves of immigration into Europe from Africa, but only two waves seemed to have been able to survive in the long run, the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon.

Europe's population was formed by essentially three waves of immigration - two from Africa, and a last one from Central Asia during the Iron Age.

DNA analysis has upset a lot of theories about social development and migration that have been developed over the years.  Many older archaeologists couldn't accept the validity of DNA-based information as it blew their pet theories and their careers out of the water.  So much for disinterested science.  Some also seem to have objected to the DNA-based conclusions on essentially racist grounds. (There is no such thing as 'disinterested' thinking....)

Worth reading for the nice summary of current DNA research in archaeology.