Present pasts in the archaeology of genetics, identity, and migration in Europe: a critical essay (original) (raw)
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This paper is concerned with the impact of ancient DNA data on our models of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in central Europe. Beginning with a brief overview of how genetic data have been received by archaeologists working in this area, it outlines the potential and remaining problems of this kind of evidence. As a migration around the beginning of the Neolithic now seems certain, new research foci are then suggested. One is renewed attention to the motivations and modalities of the migration process. The second is a fundamental change in attitude towards the capabilities of immigrant Neolithic populations to behave in novel and creative ways, abilities which in our transition models were long exclusively associated with hunter-gatherers.
Gene-flows and social processes: the potential of genetics and archaeology
Scales and units of analysis Over the past forty years, a fascinating dialogue has been developing between archaeology and gene-tics, specifically in relation to the question of the dispersal of domesticated plants and animals into Europe and its relationship with the movements of human populations. This debate has often been mar-ked by a degree of mutual confusion, owing largely to the different temporal and spatial scales at which the two disciplines operate, and the different ques-tions that they address (Brown and Pluciennik 2001. 101). While genetics generally concerns itself with the global or continental scale, archaeology is often more focused on the regional and the local, with the result that phenomena that are described at differ-ent levels of magnitude may appear to contradict each other. Some common ground is now beginning to emerge, but from an archaeological point of view it is especially interesting to ask whether the fine-grained patterns that we think we can discer...
A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING EUROPE…THE IMPACT OF ARCHAEOGENETICS AS SEEN FROM IBERIA
Digital CSIC http://hdl.handle.net/10261/173178, 2018
Recent developments of aDNA studies have had a powerful impact on European Prehistoric Archeology, both on practical and theoretical levels. One of its most perceptible effects has been the implicit -and in some cases explicit- rehabilitation of Gustav Kossinna's thought, a trend with ideological and political implications that should not be set aside. Beyond the need for a theoretical rearmament against what could be the foundations for a renovated scientific justification of new forms of racism, we must commit to an inquiry on the ways in which Archaeologists and Geneticist interact, situating what is undoubtedly a powerful scientific tool in the context of a critical archaeological practice, one committed to emancipatory values. Following this line of thought, we review the Neolithisation of Iberia as a paradigmatic case study. The long-lasting prevalence of interpretations based on the existence of a demic diffusion of some kind or another, grants any genetic data an unavoidable and crucial role in the theoretical debate, very specifically in relation to the discontinuities in genetic patterns between Mesolithic and Early Neolithic populations, and the putative Near Eastern connections of the earliest Neolithic groups. In this contribution we will examine the ways in which Archaeologists are interpreting the growing genetic evidence when building their historical narratives. Vice versa, we will take into account the ways in which Geneticists use the information provided by Archaeologists in order to historically organize their paleogenetic record.
Population, culture history, and the dynamics of change in European prehistory
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2024
Despite many attacks on its shortcomings, culture history has remained in practice the dominant framework for describing and interpreting European prehistory. It has gained even more salience in recent years because the new information coming from ancient DNA about the genetic ancestry of individuals in prehistory seems to show that this correlates closely with the cultural affiliation of the archaeological material with which they are found, raising concerns that old and discredited links between biological and cultural identity are being revived. This article argues that exploring the links between cultural and genetic ancestry does not need to fall into these errors if it takes its theory and methods from the discipline of cultural evolution and rejects characterization of the relationship in terms of 'ethnic groups'. This involves describing the archaeological record in more fine-grained, less essentialist ways and at the same time linking the archaeological and genetic patterns to histories of the rise and decline of populations and the interactions between them.
The debate on migration and identity in Europe. Antiquity 78 no. 300 (June 2004). 453-456.
In one respect, the three volumes reviewed here are similar to one another: they are all sceptical of the idea of mass migrations, and ambiguous about the concept of ethnic identity and the possibility of inferring it from archaeological evidence. This reflects current intellectual fashion, and there are, of course, good scholarly reasons for the doubts and uncertainties expressed in these volumes. It is, however, an irony that exactly at the point where identity has become the key question of the post-modern world, and migration is fast becoming the key issue of post-Soviet Europe, academic archaeologists and historians have lost their own convictions and fail to provide the historical guidance that the general public is looking for. There is some evidence that the pendulum of the academic debate is swinging back. This is partly due to the use of scientific techniques, primarily DNA analysis. But there is another irony here. The first results from recent Y-chromosome analyses suggest large-scale population replacement in England following the Anglo-Saxon immigration. In other words: the most modern technique returns us to the oldest model. Those who ducked when the pendulum swung by just over a decade ago should prepare to duck again.
Does genetic ancestry reinforce racism? A Commentary on the discourse practice of archaeo-genetics.
Zeitschrift für Technikfolgenabschätzung in Theorie und Praxis 30, 2, 2021
Genetic ancestry is seen as an alternative to the problematic concept of race and is positioned against abusive racist and nationalist perspectives. The concept of genetic ancestry is nevertheless not free of racial categorisation. Increasingly, it is becoming an integral part of identity politics. Genetic ancestry is promoted as a way to attribute identity and visibility to marginalised groups but is also rejected as a form of biocolonialism. In xenophobic and racist discourses of right-wing groups, the concept has found a fertile ground. The field of genetics is partly to blame for this, since it opens the door to problematic identity discourses through a careless use of archaeological, ethnic and genetic categories.