Dusan Boric | Sapienza University of Roma (original) (raw)
Books by Dusan Boric
Parure di antichi cacciatori-raccoglitori dellʼEuropa sud-orientale, 2024
Foraging Assemblages Volume 1, 2021
Foraging Assemblages Volume 2 , 2021
Quaternary International, 2020
![Research paper thumbnail of Deathways at Lepenski Vir: Patterns in Mortuary Practice [2016]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/49412669/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Lepenski Vir is one of the best known Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in Europe and the worl... more Lepenski Vir is one of the best known Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in Europe and the world. This book is the first volume of a comprehensive archaeological and anthropological study of the human skeletal remains from this site. Bringing various strands of mortuary evidence together for the first time the author provides a more complete picture of life and death at Lepenski Vir, including comparisons of the many contexts in which human remains have been found as well as details of biological characteristics of the people who created such distinctive material culture at the site. The site of Lepenski Vir is one of the best documented and analyzed contexts for the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition anywhere. A combination of a detailed study of archaeological data, archaeothanatological analysis, science-based approaches to the skeletal material, and a social bioarchaeology perspective regarding the integration of different strands of data when providing wider interpretations, make this book an unique contribution to the current literature on the many-sided consequences of the change from foraging to farming.
http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/deathways-at-lepenski-vir.html
![Research paper thumbnail of The Ninth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe. Book of Abstracts [2015]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/40720028/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, National Museum, Belgrade, Cardiff University, UK
![Research paper thumbnail of Lepenski Vir. Settlement of the Danube Fishermen / Lepenski Vir. Naselje dunavskih ribolovaca [2015]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/48504509/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Lepenski Vir. Settlement of the Danube Fishermen / Lepenski Vir. Naselje dunavskih ribolovaca
by Tomislav Hršak, Rajna Sosic Klindzic, Lea Čataj, Jacqueline Balen, Alenka Tomaž, Penny Bickle, Boban Tripkovic, Sinisa Radovic, Kelly Reed, Dusan Boric, Marcel Buric, and Maja Pasarić
Papers by Dusan Boric
Nature, 2024
Western Eurasia witnessed several large-scale human migrations during the Holocene 1-5. Here, to ... more Western Eurasia witnessed several large-scale human migrations during the Holocene 1-5. Here, to investigate the cross-continental effects of these migrations, we shotgun-sequenced 317 genomes-mainly from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periodsfrom across northern and western Eurasia. These were imputed alongside published data to obtain diploid genotypes from more than 1,600 ancient humans. Our analyses revealed a 'great divide' genomic boundary extending from the Black Sea to the Baltic. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were highly genetically differentiated east and west of this zone, and the effect of the neolithization was equally disparate. Large-scale ancestry shifts occurred in the west as farming was introduced, including near-total replacement of hunter-gatherers in many areas, whereas no substantial ancestry shifts happened east of the zone during the same period. Similarly, relatedness decreased in the west from the Neolithic transition onwards, whereas, east of the Urals, relatedness remained high until around 4,000 bp, consistent with the persistence of localized groups of hunter-gatherers. The boundary dissolved when Yamnaya-related ancestry spread across western Eurasia around 5,000 bp, resulting in a second major turnover that reached most parts of Europe within a 1,000-year span. The genetic origin and fate of the Yamnaya have remained elusive, but we show that hunter-gatherers from the Middle Don region contributed ancestry to them. Yamnaya groups later admixed with individuals associated with the Globular Amphora culture before expanding into Europe. Similar turnovers occurred in western Siberia, where we report new genomic data from a 'Neolithic steppe' cline spanning the Siberian forest steppe to Lake Baikal. These prehistoric migrations had profound and lasting effects on the genetic diversity of Eurasian populations.
eLife, 2024
Ancient DNA research in the past decade has revealed that European population structure changed d... more Ancient DNA research in the past decade has revealed that European population structure changed dramatically in the prehistoric period (14,000–3000 years before present, YBP), reflecting the widespread introduction of Neolithic farmer and Bronze Age Steppe ancestries. However, little is known about how population structure changed from the historical period onward (3000 YBP - present). To address this, we collected whole genomes from 204 individuals from Europe and the Mediterranean, many of which are the first historical period genomes from their region (e.g. Armenia and France). We found that most regions show remarkable inter-individual
heterogeneity. At least 7% of historical individuals carry ancestry uncommon in the region where they were sampled, some indicating cross-Mediterranean
contacts. Despite this high level of mobility, overall population structure across western Eurasia is relatively stable through the historical period up to the present, mirroring geography. We show that, under standard population genetics models with local panmixia, the observed level of dispersal would lead to a collapse of population structure. Persistent population structure thus suggests a lower effective migration rate than indicated by the observed dispersal. We hypothesize that this phenomenon can be explained by extensive
transient dispersal arising from drastically improved transportation networks and the Roman
Empire’s mobilization of people for trade, labor, and military. This work highlights the utility of
ancient DNA in elucidating finer scale human population dynamics in recent history.
HERALD OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, 2023
The Late Upper Palaeolithic (Epigravettian) sequence at Badanj has yielded an important dataset a... more The Late Upper Palaeolithic (Epigravettian) sequence at Badanj has yielded an important dataset about the occupation of the hinterland of the Eastern Adriatic catchment zone in the late Pleniglacial. The site also harbors one of the rare occurrences of Upper Palaeolithic parietal “art” in southeastern Europe in the form of a large rock engraving. Another notable aspect of the site is the presence of engravings on portable objects made from bone. The first excavations at Badanj, conducted in 1976–1979 in the zone around the engraved rock, yielded a surprisingly large number of personal ornaments (over 1000 specimens) from a variety of primarily marine gastropods, scaphopods, and bivalves, and red deer canines. Here we review what is currently known about the site and report our preliminary findings from the study of the collection of personal ornaments as well as osseous tools, some of which were marked by regular incisions forming decorative motifs. We also report two new direct accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates on antler barbed points.
Isotopic Proveniencing and Mobility: The Current State of Research, 2023
A review of ideas about the spread of agriculture from the Near East into Europe introduces a bio... more A review of ideas about the spread of agriculture from the Near East into Europe introduces a bioarchaeological investigation of the question. Strontium isotope analysis is used to make an important point about the transition to agriculture, rather large datasets are available from two areas where the transition to agriculture is well defined and where there are a substantial number of burials—in the Danube Gorges between Serbia and Romania and in Southern Scandinavia. This paper will discuss each area separately prior to a more general synthesis of the results. The moral of the story has to do with mobility and sedentism.
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2022
The Mesolithic in Eastern Europe was the last time that hunter-gatherer economies thrived there b... more The Mesolithic in Eastern Europe was the last time that hunter-gatherer economies thrived there before the spread of agriculture in the second half of the seventh millennium BC. But the period, and the interactions between foragers and the first farmers, are poorly understood in the Carpathian Basin and surrounding areas because few sites are known, and even fewer have been excavated and published. How did site location differ between Mesolithic and Early Neolithic settlers? And where should we look for rare Mesolithic sites? Proximity analysis is seldom used for predictive modeling for hunter-gatherer sites at large scales, but in this paper, we argue that it can serve as an important starting point for prospection for rare and poorly understood sites. This study uses proximity analysis to provide quantitative landscape associations of known Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in the Carpathian Basin to show how Mesolithic people chose attributes of the landscape for camps, and how they differed from the farmers who later settled. We use elevation and slope, rivers, wetlands prior to the twentieth century, and the distribution of lithic raw materials foragers and farmers used for toolmaking to identify key proxies for preferred locations. We then build predictive models for the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in the Pannonian region to highlight parts of the landscape that have relatively higher probabilities of having Mesolithic sites still undiscovered and contrast them with the settlement patterns of the first farmers in the area. We find that large parts of Pannonia conform to landforms preferred by Mesolithic foragers, but these areas have not been subject to investigation.
6000 BC: Transformation and Change in the Near East and Europe, 2022
In the Danube Gorges region of the Balkans, one finds a forager stronghold with continuous eviden... more In the Danube Gorges region of the Balkans, one finds a forager stronghold with continuous evidence of occupation throughout the Mesolithic (at least since 9500 cal BC). Based on the cultural characteristics and repertoire of documented practices, it seems that these foragers were in one way or the other communicating with or being aware of communities inhabiting regions hundreds and even thousands of kilometers away. In the course of the regional Late Mesolithic (ca. 7400–6200 cal BC), there are some indications that the Danube Gorges communities might have emulated/shared certain cultural practices that are characteristic of Neolithic communities in western Anatolia and farther to the east. One could perhaps go so far as to see this region as part of the same “culture area” with other regions of the eastern Mediterranean. Yet, in many other elements of daily life and ideology, these communities remained firmly rooted in older traditions characteristic of Mesolithic communities in the rest of Europe. There is now ample evidence that the foragers of the Danube Gorges came into contact with increasingly mobile Neolithic groups in the last centuries of the 7th millennium BC, which triggered a substantial culture change. This chapter examines the consequences of these contacts and exchanges, and the subsequent, relatively brief, flourishing of a hybrid cultural world.
Megaliths of the World, 2022
With the title of the first publication about Lepenski Vir in English – Europe’s first monumental... more With the title of the first publication about Lepenski Vir in English – Europe’s first monumental sculpture: new discoveries at Lepenski Vir (Srejović 1972) – the excavator of the site, Dragoslav Srejović, hinted at the importance of the site as the earliest place on European soil where artworks made from durable material (sandstone) might have achieved monumental significance and connotations. By revisiting the evidence, this paper looks at the ecology of relationships between humans and ‘other-than-humans’ at Lepenski Vir and broadly contemporaneous Mesolithic and Mesolithic-Neolithic transitional sites in the Danube Gorges area along the River Danube. Development and elaboration of relationships between the specific landscape and other-than-human beings in this setting might have given
rise to the tradition of sculpted boulders. It is argued that, apart from the likely mimetic, animatory and commemorative roles of sandstone boulders, the whole landscape, along with its many inhabitants, might have been understood in monumental terms underlined by their consubstantial modes of relating to each other.
eLife, 2022
Forager focus on wild cereal plants has been documented in the core zone of domestication in sout... more Forager focus on wild cereal plants has been documented in the core zone of domestication in southwestern Asia, while evidence for forager use of wild grass grains remains sporadic elsewhere. In this paper, we present starch grain and phytolith analyses of dental calculus from 60 Mesolithic and Early Neolithic individuals from five sites in the Danube Gorges of the central Balkans. This zone was inhabited by likely complex Holocene foragers for several millennia before the appearance of the first farmers ~6200 cal BC. We also analyzed forager ground stone tools (GSTs) for evidence of plant processing. Our results based on the study of dental calculus show that certain species of Poaceae (species of the genus Aegilops) were used since the Early Mesolithic, while GSTs exhibit traces of a developed grass grain processing technology. The adoption of domesticated plants in this region after ~6500 cal BC might have been eased by the existing familiarity with wild cereals. Editor's evaluation By combining starch grains analysis from dental calculus and grinding implements, the authors demonstrate the consumption of a large variety of plants by Mesolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers in the Danube Gorges of the Balkans. The data and analyses advance debates on the intensification of plant selection prior to their strict domestication.
Journal of Quaternary Science, 2021
The article presents evidence about the Middle Palaeolithic and Middle to Upper Palaeolithic tran... more The article presents evidence about the Middle Palaeolithic and Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition interval in the karst area of the Danube Gorges in the Lower Danube Basin. We review the extant data and present new evidence from two recently investigated sites found on the Serbian side of the Danube River – Tabula Traiana and Dubočka-Kozja caves. The two sites have yielded layers dating to both the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and have been investigated by the application of modern standards of excavation and recovery along with a suite of state-of-the-art analytical procedures. The presentation focuses on micromorphological analyses of the caves’ sediments, characterisation of cryptotephra, a suite of new radiometric dates (accelerator mass spectrometry and optically stimulated luminescence) as well as proteomics (zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry) and stable isotope data in discerning patterns of human occupation of these locales over the long term. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jqs.3354
PNAS, 2021
Archaeological dental calculus, or mineralized plaque, is a key tool to track the evolution of or... more Archaeological dental calculus, or mineralized plaque, is a key tool to track the evolution of oral microbiota across time in response to processes that impacted our culture and biology, such as the rise of farming during the Neolithic. However, the extent to which the human oral flora changed from prehistory until present has remained elusive due to the scarcity of data on the microbiomes of prehistoric humans. Here, we present our reconstruction of oral microbiomes via shotgun metagenomics of dental calculus in 44 ancient foragers and farmers from two regions playing a pivotal role in the spread of farming across Europe—the Balkans and the Italian Peninsula. We show that the introduction of farming in Southern Europe did not alter significantly the oral microbiomes of local forager groups, and it was in particular associated with a higher abundance of the species Olsenella sp. oral taxon 807. The human oral environment in prehistory was dominated by a microbial species, Anaerolineaceae bacterium oral taxon 439, that diversified geographically. A Near Eastern lineage of this bacterial commensal dispersed with Neolithic farmers and replaced the variant present in the local foragers. Our findings also illustrate that major taxonomic shifts in human oral microbiome composition occurred after the Neolithic and that the functional profile of modern humans evolved in recent times to develop peculiar mechanisms of antibiotic resistance that were previously absent.
Parure di antichi cacciatori-raccoglitori dellʼEuropa sud-orientale, 2024
Foraging Assemblages Volume 1, 2021
Foraging Assemblages Volume 2 , 2021
Quaternary International, 2020
Lepenski Vir is one of the best known Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in Europe and the worl... more Lepenski Vir is one of the best known Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in Europe and the world. This book is the first volume of a comprehensive archaeological and anthropological study of the human skeletal remains from this site. Bringing various strands of mortuary evidence together for the first time the author provides a more complete picture of life and death at Lepenski Vir, including comparisons of the many contexts in which human remains have been found as well as details of biological characteristics of the people who created such distinctive material culture at the site. The site of Lepenski Vir is one of the best documented and analyzed contexts for the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition anywhere. A combination of a detailed study of archaeological data, archaeothanatological analysis, science-based approaches to the skeletal material, and a social bioarchaeology perspective regarding the integration of different strands of data when providing wider interpretations, make this book an unique contribution to the current literature on the many-sided consequences of the change from foraging to farming.
http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/deathways-at-lepenski-vir.html
Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, National Museum, Belgrade, Cardiff University, UK
Lepenski Vir. Settlement of the Danube Fishermen / Lepenski Vir. Naselje dunavskih ribolovaca
by Tomislav Hršak, Rajna Sosic Klindzic, Lea Čataj, Jacqueline Balen, Alenka Tomaž, Penny Bickle, Boban Tripkovic, Sinisa Radovic, Kelly Reed, Dusan Boric, Marcel Buric, and Maja Pasarić
Nature, 2024
Western Eurasia witnessed several large-scale human migrations during the Holocene 1-5. Here, to ... more Western Eurasia witnessed several large-scale human migrations during the Holocene 1-5. Here, to investigate the cross-continental effects of these migrations, we shotgun-sequenced 317 genomes-mainly from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periodsfrom across northern and western Eurasia. These were imputed alongside published data to obtain diploid genotypes from more than 1,600 ancient humans. Our analyses revealed a 'great divide' genomic boundary extending from the Black Sea to the Baltic. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were highly genetically differentiated east and west of this zone, and the effect of the neolithization was equally disparate. Large-scale ancestry shifts occurred in the west as farming was introduced, including near-total replacement of hunter-gatherers in many areas, whereas no substantial ancestry shifts happened east of the zone during the same period. Similarly, relatedness decreased in the west from the Neolithic transition onwards, whereas, east of the Urals, relatedness remained high until around 4,000 bp, consistent with the persistence of localized groups of hunter-gatherers. The boundary dissolved when Yamnaya-related ancestry spread across western Eurasia around 5,000 bp, resulting in a second major turnover that reached most parts of Europe within a 1,000-year span. The genetic origin and fate of the Yamnaya have remained elusive, but we show that hunter-gatherers from the Middle Don region contributed ancestry to them. Yamnaya groups later admixed with individuals associated with the Globular Amphora culture before expanding into Europe. Similar turnovers occurred in western Siberia, where we report new genomic data from a 'Neolithic steppe' cline spanning the Siberian forest steppe to Lake Baikal. These prehistoric migrations had profound and lasting effects on the genetic diversity of Eurasian populations.
eLife, 2024
Ancient DNA research in the past decade has revealed that European population structure changed d... more Ancient DNA research in the past decade has revealed that European population structure changed dramatically in the prehistoric period (14,000–3000 years before present, YBP), reflecting the widespread introduction of Neolithic farmer and Bronze Age Steppe ancestries. However, little is known about how population structure changed from the historical period onward (3000 YBP - present). To address this, we collected whole genomes from 204 individuals from Europe and the Mediterranean, many of which are the first historical period genomes from their region (e.g. Armenia and France). We found that most regions show remarkable inter-individual
heterogeneity. At least 7% of historical individuals carry ancestry uncommon in the region where they were sampled, some indicating cross-Mediterranean
contacts. Despite this high level of mobility, overall population structure across western Eurasia is relatively stable through the historical period up to the present, mirroring geography. We show that, under standard population genetics models with local panmixia, the observed level of dispersal would lead to a collapse of population structure. Persistent population structure thus suggests a lower effective migration rate than indicated by the observed dispersal. We hypothesize that this phenomenon can be explained by extensive
transient dispersal arising from drastically improved transportation networks and the Roman
Empire’s mobilization of people for trade, labor, and military. This work highlights the utility of
ancient DNA in elucidating finer scale human population dynamics in recent history.
HERALD OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, 2023
The Late Upper Palaeolithic (Epigravettian) sequence at Badanj has yielded an important dataset a... more The Late Upper Palaeolithic (Epigravettian) sequence at Badanj has yielded an important dataset about the occupation of the hinterland of the Eastern Adriatic catchment zone in the late Pleniglacial. The site also harbors one of the rare occurrences of Upper Palaeolithic parietal “art” in southeastern Europe in the form of a large rock engraving. Another notable aspect of the site is the presence of engravings on portable objects made from bone. The first excavations at Badanj, conducted in 1976–1979 in the zone around the engraved rock, yielded a surprisingly large number of personal ornaments (over 1000 specimens) from a variety of primarily marine gastropods, scaphopods, and bivalves, and red deer canines. Here we review what is currently known about the site and report our preliminary findings from the study of the collection of personal ornaments as well as osseous tools, some of which were marked by regular incisions forming decorative motifs. We also report two new direct accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates on antler barbed points.
Isotopic Proveniencing and Mobility: The Current State of Research, 2023
A review of ideas about the spread of agriculture from the Near East into Europe introduces a bio... more A review of ideas about the spread of agriculture from the Near East into Europe introduces a bioarchaeological investigation of the question. Strontium isotope analysis is used to make an important point about the transition to agriculture, rather large datasets are available from two areas where the transition to agriculture is well defined and where there are a substantial number of burials—in the Danube Gorges between Serbia and Romania and in Southern Scandinavia. This paper will discuss each area separately prior to a more general synthesis of the results. The moral of the story has to do with mobility and sedentism.
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2022
The Mesolithic in Eastern Europe was the last time that hunter-gatherer economies thrived there b... more The Mesolithic in Eastern Europe was the last time that hunter-gatherer economies thrived there before the spread of agriculture in the second half of the seventh millennium BC. But the period, and the interactions between foragers and the first farmers, are poorly understood in the Carpathian Basin and surrounding areas because few sites are known, and even fewer have been excavated and published. How did site location differ between Mesolithic and Early Neolithic settlers? And where should we look for rare Mesolithic sites? Proximity analysis is seldom used for predictive modeling for hunter-gatherer sites at large scales, but in this paper, we argue that it can serve as an important starting point for prospection for rare and poorly understood sites. This study uses proximity analysis to provide quantitative landscape associations of known Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in the Carpathian Basin to show how Mesolithic people chose attributes of the landscape for camps, and how they differed from the farmers who later settled. We use elevation and slope, rivers, wetlands prior to the twentieth century, and the distribution of lithic raw materials foragers and farmers used for toolmaking to identify key proxies for preferred locations. We then build predictive models for the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in the Pannonian region to highlight parts of the landscape that have relatively higher probabilities of having Mesolithic sites still undiscovered and contrast them with the settlement patterns of the first farmers in the area. We find that large parts of Pannonia conform to landforms preferred by Mesolithic foragers, but these areas have not been subject to investigation.
6000 BC: Transformation and Change in the Near East and Europe, 2022
In the Danube Gorges region of the Balkans, one finds a forager stronghold with continuous eviden... more In the Danube Gorges region of the Balkans, one finds a forager stronghold with continuous evidence of occupation throughout the Mesolithic (at least since 9500 cal BC). Based on the cultural characteristics and repertoire of documented practices, it seems that these foragers were in one way or the other communicating with or being aware of communities inhabiting regions hundreds and even thousands of kilometers away. In the course of the regional Late Mesolithic (ca. 7400–6200 cal BC), there are some indications that the Danube Gorges communities might have emulated/shared certain cultural practices that are characteristic of Neolithic communities in western Anatolia and farther to the east. One could perhaps go so far as to see this region as part of the same “culture area” with other regions of the eastern Mediterranean. Yet, in many other elements of daily life and ideology, these communities remained firmly rooted in older traditions characteristic of Mesolithic communities in the rest of Europe. There is now ample evidence that the foragers of the Danube Gorges came into contact with increasingly mobile Neolithic groups in the last centuries of the 7th millennium BC, which triggered a substantial culture change. This chapter examines the consequences of these contacts and exchanges, and the subsequent, relatively brief, flourishing of a hybrid cultural world.
Megaliths of the World, 2022
With the title of the first publication about Lepenski Vir in English – Europe’s first monumental... more With the title of the first publication about Lepenski Vir in English – Europe’s first monumental sculpture: new discoveries at Lepenski Vir (Srejović 1972) – the excavator of the site, Dragoslav Srejović, hinted at the importance of the site as the earliest place on European soil where artworks made from durable material (sandstone) might have achieved monumental significance and connotations. By revisiting the evidence, this paper looks at the ecology of relationships between humans and ‘other-than-humans’ at Lepenski Vir and broadly contemporaneous Mesolithic and Mesolithic-Neolithic transitional sites in the Danube Gorges area along the River Danube. Development and elaboration of relationships between the specific landscape and other-than-human beings in this setting might have given
rise to the tradition of sculpted boulders. It is argued that, apart from the likely mimetic, animatory and commemorative roles of sandstone boulders, the whole landscape, along with its many inhabitants, might have been understood in monumental terms underlined by their consubstantial modes of relating to each other.
eLife, 2022
Forager focus on wild cereal plants has been documented in the core zone of domestication in sout... more Forager focus on wild cereal plants has been documented in the core zone of domestication in southwestern Asia, while evidence for forager use of wild grass grains remains sporadic elsewhere. In this paper, we present starch grain and phytolith analyses of dental calculus from 60 Mesolithic and Early Neolithic individuals from five sites in the Danube Gorges of the central Balkans. This zone was inhabited by likely complex Holocene foragers for several millennia before the appearance of the first farmers ~6200 cal BC. We also analyzed forager ground stone tools (GSTs) for evidence of plant processing. Our results based on the study of dental calculus show that certain species of Poaceae (species of the genus Aegilops) were used since the Early Mesolithic, while GSTs exhibit traces of a developed grass grain processing technology. The adoption of domesticated plants in this region after ~6500 cal BC might have been eased by the existing familiarity with wild cereals. Editor's evaluation By combining starch grains analysis from dental calculus and grinding implements, the authors demonstrate the consumption of a large variety of plants by Mesolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers in the Danube Gorges of the Balkans. The data and analyses advance debates on the intensification of plant selection prior to their strict domestication.
Journal of Quaternary Science, 2021
The article presents evidence about the Middle Palaeolithic and Middle to Upper Palaeolithic tran... more The article presents evidence about the Middle Palaeolithic and Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition interval in the karst area of the Danube Gorges in the Lower Danube Basin. We review the extant data and present new evidence from two recently investigated sites found on the Serbian side of the Danube River – Tabula Traiana and Dubočka-Kozja caves. The two sites have yielded layers dating to both the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and have been investigated by the application of modern standards of excavation and recovery along with a suite of state-of-the-art analytical procedures. The presentation focuses on micromorphological analyses of the caves’ sediments, characterisation of cryptotephra, a suite of new radiometric dates (accelerator mass spectrometry and optically stimulated luminescence) as well as proteomics (zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry) and stable isotope data in discerning patterns of human occupation of these locales over the long term. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jqs.3354
PNAS, 2021
Archaeological dental calculus, or mineralized plaque, is a key tool to track the evolution of or... more Archaeological dental calculus, or mineralized plaque, is a key tool to track the evolution of oral microbiota across time in response to processes that impacted our culture and biology, such as the rise of farming during the Neolithic. However, the extent to which the human oral flora changed from prehistory until present has remained elusive due to the scarcity of data on the microbiomes of prehistoric humans. Here, we present our reconstruction of oral microbiomes via shotgun metagenomics of dental calculus in 44 ancient foragers and farmers from two regions playing a pivotal role in the spread of farming across Europe—the Balkans and the Italian Peninsula. We show that the introduction of farming in Southern Europe did not alter significantly the oral microbiomes of local forager groups, and it was in particular associated with a higher abundance of the species Olsenella sp. oral taxon 807. The human oral environment in prehistory was dominated by a microbial species, Anaerolineaceae bacterium oral taxon 439, that diversified geographically. A Near Eastern lineage of this bacterial commensal dispersed with Neolithic farmers and replaced the variant present in the local foragers. Our findings also illustrate that major taxonomic shifts in human oral microbiome composition occurred after the Neolithic and that the functional profile of modern humans evolved in recent times to develop peculiar mechanisms of antibiotic resistance that were previously absent.
Foraging Assemblages (Volume 2), 2021
A large quantity of archaeological material was excavated at the site of Vlasac in the Danube Gor... more A large quantity of archaeological material was excavated at the site of Vlasac in the Danube Gorges of the central Balkans in the course of the 1970–1971 excavation campaigns. There are close to 4000 artefacts or
modified fragments of bone, antler, and wild boar tusk coming from the first excavations of Vlasac. In addition, over a hundred osseous artefacts and production waste have come from more recent excavations at the site
(2006–2009). This is currently one of the largest assemblages of osseous artefacts from any Mesolithic site in south-eastern Europe. We undertook a (re-)analysis of this material, and in this paper, we present preliminary
results of this study in an attempt to shed some light on the technological chaîne opératoire of this osseous industry.
Foraging Assemblages (Volume 2), 2021
The site of Lepenski Vir in the Danube Gorges was discovered and excavated in 1965–1970. It becam... more The site of Lepenski Vir in the Danube Gorges was discovered and excavated in 1965–1970. It became famous for its boulder artworks, burial record, and its exceptional architecture, which took the form of trapezoid-shaped building floors representing substantial dwelling structures. All of these features are associated with the phase I-II settlement dated to the Late Mesolithic/Early Neolithic transition period, c. 6200–5900 cal BC.
Yet, traces of occupation at the site also date to both earlier and later periods. The recovered remains of charcoal from a number of soil samples, associated with different phases of occupation, collected during the excavations of the site and not previously analyzed, provide the first systematic evidence about the presence and use of woody plants at the site. The identified taxa include Quercus sp. deciduous, Fraxinus sp.,
Pinus sylvestris type, Cornus sp., and Sambucus sp. These species formed part of the vegetation cover of the area, while the remains reported here largely come from trees used in the perishable upper construction of
buildings, as firewood, and/or as craft raw materials.
Foraging Assemblages (Volume 2), 2021
There is an increasing body of evidence to argue that the last hunters were more sedentary and th... more There is an increasing body of evidence to argue that the last hunters were more sedentary and the first farmers in prehistoric Europe were more mobile than has generally been acknowledged. That discussion is continued here with evidence from two locations, the Late Mesolithic site of Skateholm in southern Sweden and the Mesolithic-Early Neolithic sites in the Danube Gorges between Serbia and Romania. Data from both areas, including archaeological remains, strontium isotope analysis of human tooth enamel, and seasonality studies of fauna document more sedentary hunters and more mobile farmers.
Foraging Assemblages (Volume 1), 2021
Foraging Assemblages (Volume 1), 2021
Foraging Assemblages (Volume 1), 2021
The territory of present-day Montenegro, with its natural affordances, including mountainous, kar... more The territory of present-day Montenegro, with its natural affordances, including mountainous, karst-dominated landscapes, the proximity of the Adriatic coast, deeply carved river valleys, and high plateaux, holds a significant promise for the study of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. To date, archaeological investigations in this region have revealed Mesolithic occupation deposits at only six rockshelter and cave sites. Although the number of locations where Mesolithic deposits have been documented remains low and the Mesolithic timespans remain poorly dated, in this paper we review the evidence of Holocene forager presence in Montenegro and present new data based on recent analyses of existing collections, on newly obtained AMS dates, and results of our fieldwork in the region since 2012.
Foraging Assemblages (Volume 1), 2021
Scientific Reports, 2021
This paper provides results from a suite of analyses made on human dental material from the Late ... more This paper provides results from a suite of analyses made on human dental material from the Late Palaeolithic to Neolithic strata of the cave site of Grotta Continenza situated in the Fucino Basin of the Abruzzo region of central Italy. The available human remains from this site provide a unique possibility to study ways in which forager versus farmer lifeways affected human odonto-skeletal remains. The main aim of our study is to understand palaeodietary patterns and their changes over time as reflected in teeth. These analyses involve a review of metrics and oral pathologies, micro-fossils preserved in the mineralized dental plaque, macrowear, and buccal microwear. Our results suggest that these complementary approaches support the assumption about a critical change in dental conditions and status with the introduction of Neolithic foodstuff and habits. However, we warn that different methodologies applied here provide data at different scales of resolution for detecting such changes and a multipronged approach to the study of dental collections is needed for a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of diachronic changes. The transition from foraging to farming was a long-lasting and nonlinear process that took place over several millennia and enfolded at different times in different parts of the world (e.g. 1-3). While this process is clearly reflected in changes in material culture traditions, it can equally well be observed on skeletal evidence (e.g. 4-6). Among other human remains, teeth represent the privileged anatomical segment for the application of sophisticated analytical methods. Teeth are the most durable part of the human body; mineralized tissues capable of preserving valuable information about an individual's biological life history. As food passes through the mouth, teeth trap direct evidence of dietary practices-either through physical-chemical changes foodstuff causes in teeth (certain dental pathologies), traces of wear, and/or foods deposited in the matrix of mineralized dental plaque. Besides information on dietary practices, various physiological processes are also recorded in dental structures. In particular, carious lesions can be informative of the consumption of highly cariogenic wild and domesticated plant foods as they involve the progressive demineralization of the mineral component of the dental tissues by acids produced from the fermentation of food particles 7. Dental microwear analysis is commonly used to investigate shifts in dietary habits in past human populations 8-12. Foodstuffs chewing causes microscopic OPEN
Mobile Images of Ancestral Bodies: A Millennium-Long Perspective from Iberia to Europe (Vol. I), 2021
This article reviews the history of research and some of the most recent advances in the study of... more This article reviews the history of research and some of the most recent advances in the study of the Mesolithic and Neolithic archaeology of the area of the Danube Gorges in the north-central Balkans in order to contextualize the boulder artworks most abundantly found at the site of Lepenski Vir in this
regional context. The appearance of sculpted boulder artworks, some of which depict hybrid human/fish creatures, can be linked to both subsistence
and mortuary practices of these Holocene foragers. Understanding the
context of their making at the end of the seventh millennium cal BC at the
time of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition also requires one to take a deeper
view of what took place in the course of the Mesolithic of this region. This
specific creative expression of symbolism appears at a particular historical
juncture when indigenous hunter-fisher-gatherers came into contact with the
first Neolithic groups of north-western-Anatolian ancestry and their cultural
tradition.
Documenta Praehistorica , 2020
Around the mid-19th century, several groups of archaeologists active in northern Italy discovered... more Around the mid-19th century, several groups of archaeologists active in northern Italy discovered a few sites characterized by the presence of ‘hut-floors’ or ‘pit-dwellings’ (fondi di capanna), which they attributed to a well-defined period of their Stone Age sequence. Research in the central Po Plain of Lombardy was resumed in the 1970s, allowing one to attribute some of the older discoveries to the Early Neolithic Vhò cultural aspect. The scope of the excavations, which started on one of the Vhò di Piadena sites in 1974, was to interpret the function of the previously discovered features, establish their radiocarbon chronology, and compare the finds with those of the Fiorano culture distributed across the eastern regions of the Po Plain. The main goal of this paper is to provide an international audience with novel information about one of the still poorly known Early Neolithic cultural aspects of northern Italy, namely that of the Vhò.
MESO 2015: The Ninth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, Sep 14, 2015
Ethel Allué (Unitat d’Arqueobotànica, Tarragona, Spain), Dragana Filipović (Institute for Balkan ... more Ethel Allué (Unitat d’Arqueobotànica, Tarragona, Spain), Dragana Filipović (Institute for Balkan Studies, Serbia) and Dušan Borić (Cardiff University, UK)
Around fifty soil samples collected from archaeological deposits excavated in the 1960’s at Lepenski Vir have recently been processed and analysed for macro-plant remains. The poster presents first results of the analysis of charred macroscopic plant remains, and considers their implications for the palaeo-environment and the use of plants at the site. Although preliminary, the results offer an important insight into the availability of plant resources and some plant-related aspects of life at this unique site.
Isotopic Proveniencing and Mobility: The Current State of Research, 2023
A review of ideas about the spread of agriculture from the Near East into Europe introduces a bio... more A review of ideas about the spread of agriculture from the Near East into Europe introduces a bioarchaeological investigation of the question. Strontium isotope analysis is used to make an important point about the transition to agriculture, rather large datasets are available from two areas where the transition to agriculture is well defined and where there are a substantial number of burials—in the Danube Gorges between Serbia and Romania and in Southern Scandinavia. This paper will discuss each area separately prior to a more general synthesis of the results. The moral of the story has to do with mobility and sedentism.
Glasnik ZMBIH, 2021
The Late Upper Palaeolithic (Epigravettian) sequence at Badanj has yielded an important dataset a... more The Late Upper Palaeolithic (Epigravettian) sequence at Badanj has yielded an important dataset about the occupation of the hinterland of the Eastern Adriatic catchment zone in the late Pleniglacial. The site also harbors one of the rare occurrences of Upper Palaeolithic parietal "art" in southeastern Europe in the form of a large rock engraving. Another notable aspect of the site is the presence of engravings on portable objects made from bone. The rst excavations at Badanj, conducted in 1976-1979 in the zone around the engraved rock, yielded a surprisingly large number of personal ornaments (over 1000 specimens) from a variety of primarily marine gastropods, scaphopods, and bivalves, and red deer canines. Here we review what is currently known about the site and report our preliminary ndings from the study of the collection of personal ornaments as well as osseous tools, some of which were marked by regular incisions forming decorative motifs. We also report two new direct accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates on antler barbed points.