Community differentiation and kinship among Europe's first farmers (original) (raw)
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Community differentiation is a fundamental topic of the social sciences, and its prehistoric origins in Europe are typically assumed to lie among the complex, densely populated societies that developed millennia after their Neolithic predecessors. Here we present the earliest, statistically significant evidence for such differentiation among the first farmers of Neolithic Europe. By using strontium isotopic data from more than 300 early Neolithic human skeletons, we find significantly less variance in geographic signatures among males than we find among females, and less variance among burials with ground stone adzes than burials without such adzes. From this, in context with other available evidence, we infer differential land use in early Neolithic central Europe within a patrilocal kinship system.
By Anna Szecsenyi-Nagy, Guido Brandt, Victoria Keerl, János Jakucs, Wolfgang Haak, Sabine Möller-Rieker, Kitti Köhler, Balázs Mende, Marc Fecher, Krisztián Oross, [......], Mario Šlaus, Mario Novak, Nives Pećina-Šlaus, Brigitta Ősz, Vanda Voicsek, Krisztina Somogyi, Gábor Tóth, Bernd Kromer, Eszter Bánffy, Kurt Alt. Farming was established in Central Europe by the Linearbandkeramik culture (LBK), a well-investigated archaeological horizon, which emerged in the Carpathian Basin, in today's Hungary. However, the genetic background of the LBK genesis has not been revealed yet. Here we present 9 Y chromosomal and 84 mitochondrial DNA profiles from Mesolithic, Neolithic Starčevo and LBK sites (7th/6th millennium BC) from the Carpathian Basin and south-eastern Europe. We detect genetic continuity of both maternal and paternal elements during the initial spread of agriculture, and confirm the substantial genetic impact of early farming south-eastern European and Carpathian Basin cultures on Central European populations of the 6th-4th millennium BC. Our comprehensive Y chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA population genetic analyses demonstrate a clear affinity of the early farmers to the modern Near East and Caucasus, tracing the expansion from that region through south-eastern Europe and the Carpathian Basin into Central Europe. Our results also reveal contrasting patterns for male and female genetic diversity in the European Neolithic, suggesting patrilineal descent system and patrilocal residential rules among the early farmers.
Extensive pedigrees reveal the social organization of a Neolithic community
Nature, 2023
Social anthropology and ethnographic studies have described kinship systems and networks of contact and exchange in extant populations1–4. However, for prehistoric societies, these systems can be studied only indirectly from biological and cultural remains. Stable isotope data, sex and age at death can provide insights into the demographic structure of a burial community and identify local versus non-local childhood signatures, archaeogenetic data can reconstruct the biological relationships between individuals, which enables the reconstruction of pedigrees, and combined evidence informs on kinship practices and residence patterns in prehistoric societies. Here we report ancient DNA, strontium isotope and contextual data from more than 100 individuals from the site Gurgy ‘les Noisats’ (France), dated to the western European Neolithic around 4850–4500 bc. We find that this burial community was genetically connected by two main pedigrees, spanning seven generations, that were patrilocal and patrilineal, with evidence for female exogamy and exchange with genetically close neighbouring groups. The microdemographic structure of individuals linked and unlinked to the pedigrees reveals additional information about the social structure, living conditions and site occupation. The absence of half-siblings and the high number of adult full siblings suggest that there were stable health conditions and a supportive social network, facilitating high fertility and low mortality5. Age-structure differences and strontium isotope results by generation indicate that the site was used for just a few decades, providing new insights into shifting sedentary farming practices during the European Neolithic.
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2021
This study aims to better understand the development of group identity, mobility, and health in the Early Medieval Meuse Valley. This is achieved by combining existing demographic and palaeopathological information from 73 cremation deposits from Echt, the Netherlands, with new strontium isotope ratios (87 Sr/ 86 Sr) and strontium concentrations ([Sr]) that are performed on pars petrosa, diaphysis, and rib fragments. Although the surrounding Early Medieval cemeteries practiced inhumation, the initial burial community of Echt persisted in expressing the divergent burial ritual of cremation. Thirty-two radiocarbon dates demonstrate the fifth-to sixth-century cremation deposits to be chronologically separated from the seventh-century inhumations that were preserved in situ, suggesting a subsequent burial community replaced cremation with inhumation in the seventh century. Nutritionally inadequate diets may have contributed to the relatively high prevalence of porotic hyperostosis (~34%), resulting from decreasing foods supplies caused by deteriorating climatic conditions. The inhabitants are postulated to have mainly consumed foods originating from the land directly surrounding their farmsteads, expressed by the great variability in the 87 Sr/ 86 Sr of the diaphyses and ribs (0.7096 to 0.7131), matching the geological complexity of the area. The lack of significant differences between the 87 Sr/ 86 Sr and [Sr] of ribs and diaphyses connotes little change in the geological origin of the foods occurred over time, stressing the importance of the yield of local harvests. In contrast, large differences in childhood (i.e. pars petrosa) vs. adult (i.e. ribs and diaphyses) 87 Sr/ 86 Sr suggest the regional movement of individuals to possibly support inter-farmstead relationships (e.g. via marriages).
Evidence of social structure of a Neolithic community in Svodín, Southwest Slovakia.
2015
The period after initial development of Neolithic society in Central Europe, known as the Post-LBK era, is marked by an influx of new cultural stimuli from the South and the emergence of formalization in monumental architecture, resulting in a cultural diversification while maintaining significant common traits across different regions. An important part of understanding the process of this change is understanding the development of social complexity during the transition. This study addresses this question by examining variations in burial rite coinciding with the age or sex of the deceased or the spatial distribution of 106 graves from the Lengyel Culture settlement in Svodín, dated around 4800 cal BC. The concept of exceptionality rather than richness of burials is introduced. It is based on the composition and spatial distribution of inventories within graves and contrary to the traditional deductive approach does not depend on prior selection of attributes of prestige. Principal Component Analysis is used to assess exceptionality based on ceramic shapes, decoration and non-ceramic grave goods. Resampling tests using a Monte Carlo algorithm are employed to assess the significance of connection of specific attributes with exceptional burials and age, sex or spatial groups. This approach enables us to study social differences in regions and time periods where prestigious materials such as metal are not yet present. New conclusions are drawn about social stratification in the Post-LBK era and confronted with results of existing studies dealing with status and prestige. The image of a vertically differentiated society with middle aged men assuming the highest rank in the community emerges, showing complex social relations both between and within different kinships on the settlement. Observations of diachronic development of social differences indicate a gradually evolving society, foreshadowing the emergence of elites in the following Aeneolithic period.
The first farmers of central Europe: diversity in LBK lifeways (Chapter 1 intro)
2013
From about 5500 cal BC to soon after 5000 cal BC, the lifeways of the first farmers of central Europe, the LBK culture (Linearbandkeramik), are seen in distinctive practices of longhouse use, settlement forms, landscape choice, subsistence, material culture and mortuary rites. Within the five or more centuries of LBK existence a dynamic sequence of changes can be seen in, for instance, the expansion and increasing density of settlement, progressive regionalisation in pottery decoration, and at the end some signs of stress or even localised crisis. Although showing many features in common across its very broad distribution, however, the LBK phenomenon was not everywhere the same, and there is a complicated mixture of uniformity and diversity. This major study takes a strikingly large regional sample, from northern Hungary westwards along the Danube to Alsace in the upper Rhine valley, and addresses the question of the extent of diversity in the lifeways of developed and late LBK communities, through a wide-ranging study of diet, lifetime mobility, health and physical condition, the presentation of the bodies of the deceased in mortuary ritual. It uses an innovative combination of isotopic (principally carbon, nitrogen and strontium, with some oxygen), osteological and archaeological analysis to address difference and change across the LBK, and to reflect on cultural change in general.
2008
In this final chapter, we discuss the major issues that have informed our research about Vedrovice, place them into the broader context of the LBK origins, and address research questions relating to the emergence of the LBK tradition in terms of both, the population dynamics and population movement on the one hand, and culture change and cultural transmission on the other. We go on to summarize and discuss the results of our collective research relating to the ancestry of the Vedrovice community, the health condition, palaeodemography and nutrition of its inhabitants, their social status and social differentiation, and the transmission of cultural traditions inter-generationally and through contact as the major vehicle of culture change that brought about the development of the LBK culture. We go on to reconstruct life biographies of selected individuals from Vedrovice community in order to illustrate the personal diversity and variability of those who made up the Vedrovice communit...