Roots of diversity in aLinearbandkeramikcommunity: isotope evidence at Aiterhofen (Bavaria, Germany)

The early Neolithic in northern Central Europe ought to be the theatre in which incoming farmers meet local hunter-gatherers, with greater or lesser impact. By way of contrast, the authors use isotope analysis in a cemetery beside the Danube to describe a peaceful, well-integrated community with a common diet and largely indigenous inhabitants. Men and women may have had different mobility strategies, but the isotopes did not signal special origins or diverse food-producing roles. Other explanations attend the variations in the burial rites of individuals and their distribution into cemetery plots.

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Interactions between earliest Linearbandkeramik farmers and central European hunter gatherers at the dawn of European Neolithization

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-019-56029-2 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Alexey G. Nikitin ◽

Peter Stadler ◽

Nadezhda Kotova ◽

Maria Teschler-Nicola ◽

T. Douglas Price ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Central Europe ◽

Isotope Analysis ◽

Nitrogen Isotope ◽

Western Anatolia ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Central European ◽

Carbon And Nitrogen ◽

Farming Communities ◽

Non Local ◽

Range Of Variation

AbstractArchaeogenetic research over the last decade has demonstrated that European Neolithic farmers (ENFs) were descended primarily from Anatolian Neolithic farmers (ANFs). ENFs, including early Neolithic central European Linearbandkeramik (LBK) farming communities, also harbored ancestry from European Mesolithic hunter gatherers (WHGs) to varying extents, reflecting admixture between ENFs and WHGs. However, the timing and other details of this process are still imperfectly understood. In this report, we provide a bioarchaeological analysis of three individuals interred at the Brunn 2 site of the Brunn am Gebirge-Wolfholz archeological complex, one of the oldest LBK sites in central Europe. Two of the individuals had a mixture of WHG-related and ANF-related ancestry, one of them with approximately 50% of each, while the third individual had approximately all ANF-related ancestry. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios for all three individuals were within the range of variation reflecting diets of other Neolithic agrarian populations. Strontium isotope analysis revealed that the ~50% WHG-ANF individual was non-local to the Brunn 2 area. Overall, our data indicate interbreeding between incoming farmers, whose ancestors ultimately came from western Anatolia, and local HGs, starting within the first few generations of the arrival of the former in central Europe, as well as highlighting the integrative nature and composition of the early LBK communities.

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Interactions between earliest Linearbandkeramik farmers and central European hunter gatherers at the dawn of European Neolithization

10.1101/741900 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Alexey G. Nikitin ◽

Peter Stadler ◽

Nadezhda Kotova ◽

Maria Teschler-Nicola ◽

T. Douglas Price ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Central Europe ◽

Isotope Analysis ◽

Nitrogen Isotope ◽

Western Anatolia ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Central European ◽

Carbon And Nitrogen ◽

Farming Communities ◽

Non Local ◽

Range Of Variation

ABSTRACTArchaeogenetic research over the last decade has demonstrated that European Neolithic farmers (ENFs) were descended primarily from Anatolian Neolithic farmers (ANFs). ENFs, including early Neolithic central European Linearbandkeramik (LBK) farming communities, also harbored ancestry from European Mesolithic hunter gatherers (WHGs) to varying extents, reflecting admixture between ENFs and WHGs. However, the timing and other details of this process are still imperfectly understood. In this report, we provide a bioarchaeological analysis of three individuals interred at the Brunn 2 site of the Brunn am Gebirge-Wolfholz archeological complex, one of the oldest LBK sites in central Europe. Two of the individuals had a mixture of WHG-related and ANF-related ancestry, one of them with approximately 50% of each, while the third individual had approximately all ANF-related ancestry. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios for all three individuals were within the range of variation reflecting diets of other Neolithic agrarian populations. Strontium isotope analysis revealed that the ~50% WHG-ANF individual was non-local to the Brunn 2 area. Overall, our data indicate interbreeding between incoming farmers, whose ancestors ultimately came from western Anatolia, and local HGs, starting within the first few generations of the arrival of the former in central Europe, as well as highlighting the integrative nature and composition of the early LBK communities.

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What Have Genetics Ever Done for Us? The Implications of aDNA Data for Interpreting Identity in Early Neolithic Central Europe

European Journal of Archaeology ◽

10.1179/1461957114y.0000000083 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 454-476 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Daniela Hofmann

Keyword(s):

Central Europe ◽

Genetic Data ◽

Fundamental Change ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

Migration Process ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Neolithic Transition ◽

Transition Models ◽

New Research ◽

The Impact

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.

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Isotopic evidence for residential mobility of farming communities during the transition to agriculture in Britain

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.150522 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 150522 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Samantha Neil ◽

Jane Evans ◽

Janet Montgomery ◽

Chris Scarre

Keyword(s):

Residential Mobility ◽

Tooth Enamel ◽

Isotope Analysis ◽

Way Of Life ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Farming Communities ◽

Transition To Agriculture ◽

Early Farming ◽

Local Hunter ◽

Early Farmers

Development of agriculture is often assumed to be accompanied by a decline in residential mobility, and sedentism is frequently proposed to provide the basis for economic intensification, population growth and increasing social complexity. In Britain, however, the nature of the agricultural transition ( ca 4000 BC) and its effect on residence patterns has been intensely debated. Some authors attribute the transition to the arrival of populations who practised a system of sedentary intensive mixed farming similar to that of the very earliest agricultural regimes in central Europe, ca 5500 BC, with cultivation of crops in fixed plots and livestock keeping close to permanently occupied farmsteads. Others argue that local hunter–gatherers within Britain adopted selected elements of a farming economy and retained a mobile way of life. We use strontium and oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel from an Early Neolithic burial population in Gloucestershire, England, to evaluate the residence patterns of early farmers. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that early farming communities in Britain were residentially mobile and were not fully sedentary. Results highlight the diverse nature of settlement strategies associated with early farming in Europe and are of wider significance to understanding the effect of the transition to agriculture on residence patterns.

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Ageing, Childhood and Social Identity in the Early Neolithic of Central Europe

European Journal of Archaeology ◽

10.1179/1461957114y.0000000052 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 17 (2) ◽

pp. 208-228 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Penny Bickle ◽

Linda Fibiger

Keyword(s):

Social Identity ◽

Central Europe ◽

Middle Childhood ◽

Continuous Process ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

Subsistence Strategies ◽

Archaeological Data ◽

Burial Rites ◽

Personal Violence

In this paper, osteological and archaeological data are brought together to further our understanding of childhood in the early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture (LBK; c. 5500–5000 cal BC). In many characterizations of LBK society, fixed representations of sex or identities based on subsistence strategies pervade, with children rarely considered and then only as a specialized and separate topic of study. As a challenge to this view, a summary of the current models of childhood in the LBK culture is presented and debated with reference to the burial rites of children. A period of ‘middle’ childhood is proposed for the LBK culture. The osteological evidence suggests that childhood could be a time of dietary stress, perhaps with sex-based differences from childhood, and examples of the diseases and traumas suffered are discussed. Finally, the possibility that the children were actively contributing to acts of personal violence is raised. While the recognition of identity making as a continuous process remains a powerful exploratory route to investigating prehistoric societies, we argue that this should not discourage us from seeing identity as formed over the entire lifecourse.

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Strategic and sporadic marine consumption at the onset of the Neolithic: increasing temporal resolution in the isotope evidence

Antiquity ◽

10.1017/s0003598x00049863 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 87 (338) ◽

pp. 1060-1072 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Janet Montgomery ◽

Julia Beaumont ◽

Mandy Jay ◽

Katie Keefe ◽

Andrew R. Gledhill ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stable Isotope ◽

General Pattern ◽

Isotope Analysis ◽

Cereal Crops ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

North West ◽

Neolithic Transition ◽

Isotope Evidence ◽

Marine Food ◽

Radical Shift

Stable isotope analysis has provided crucial new insights into dietary change at the Neolithic transition in north-west Europe, indicating an unexpectedly sudden and radical shift from marine to terrestrial resources in coastal and island locations. Investigations of early Neolithic skeletal material from Sumburgh on Shetland, at the far-flung margins of the Neolithic world, suggest that this general pattern may mask significant subtle detail. Analysis of juvenile dentine reveals the consumption of marine foods on an occasional basis. This suggests that marine foods may have been consumed as a crucial supplementary resource in times of famine, when the newly introduced cereal crops failed to cope with the demanding climate of Shetland. This isotopic evidence is consistent with the presence of marine food debris in contemporary middens. The occasional and contingent nature of marine food consumption underlines how, even on Shetland, the shift from marine to terrestrial diet was a key element in the Neolithic transition.

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A Meeting in the Forest: Hunters and Farmers at the Coneybury ‘Anomaly’, Wiltshire

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society ◽

10.1017/ppr.2018.15 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 84 ◽

pp. 111-144 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Kurt J. Gron ◽

Peter ROWLEY-CONWY ◽

Eva Fernandez-Dominguez ◽

Darren R. Gröcke ◽

Janet Montgomery ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stone Tools ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

Faunal Assemblage ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Domestic Species ◽

Regional Community ◽

Local Hunter ◽

Isotope Analyses ◽

Lines Of Evidence ◽

Local Farmers

The Coneybury ‘Anomaly’ is an Early Neolithic pit located just south-east of Stonehenge, Wiltshire. Excavations recovered a faunal assemblage unique in its composition, consisting of both wild and domestic species, as well as large quantities of ceramics and stone tools, including a substantial proportion of blades/bladelets. We present a suite of new isotope analyses of the faunal material, together with ancient DNA sex determination, and reconsider the published faunal data to ask: What took place at Coneybury, and who was involved? We argue on the basis of multiple lines of evidence that Coneybury represents the material remains of a gathering organised by a regional community, with participants coming from different areas. One group of attendees provided deer instead of, or in addition to, cattle. We conclude that the most likely scenario is that this group comprised local hunter-gatherers who survived alongside local farmers.

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Houses and burials at Lepenski Vir

European Journal of Archaeology ◽

10.1179/146195700807860918 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 3 (3) ◽

pp. 330-349 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Ivana Radovanović

Keyword(s):

Dietary Change ◽

Spatial Patterning ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Burial Practices ◽

Archaeological Material ◽

Burial Practice ◽

Local Hunter

Houses and burials recorded in the settlements of Lepenski Vir I and II and burials previously ascribed to Lepenski Vir III are here discussed in view of the recent analyses of archaeological material and re-analyses of the field burial record from this site. Evidence of pottery in situ in houses of Lepenski Vir I, together with the evidence for important dietary change in the Lepenski Vir community in the course of the second half of the seventh millennium cal BC, reinforces the assumption, made by a number of scholars over several previous decades, of intensive contacts between early Neolithic groups and local hunter-gatherers. Burial practice throughout the seventh and sixth millennia cal BC at Lepenski Vir is thus reanalyzed in this new light. Apart from burials unrelated to architectural remains, five ‘types’ of burial deposition are noted in relation to houses of Lepenski Vir I–II, all but one having a distinct chronological and spatial patterning. The inhabitants' choice of mode of deposition of the deceased is always associated with a certain location in the settlement, sometimes used over several centuries. In the course of their history, these locations were often used for building a particular house or group of houses. The content of such houses is also discussed wherever it was possible. Duality in settlement organization could also be recognized in the burial practices related to settlement architecture. The attribution of the majority of burial remains to early Neolithic Lepenski Vir III is here also questioned in the light of new data and reinterpreted settlement sequences.

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Confirmation of the first Neolithic rondel-type enclosure in Poland

Antiquity ◽

10.1017/s0003598x00048262 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 86 (334) ◽

pp. 1084-1096 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Zbigniew Kobyliński ◽

Otto Braasch ◽

Tomasz Herbich ◽

Krzysztof Misiewicz ◽

Louis Daniel Nebelsick ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Central Europe ◽

Aerial Photography ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

Danube Region

The early Neolithic rondel is a large curvilinear ditched and palisaded enclosure found in increasing numbers in Central Europe. It has close links with the tells of the Danube region, themselves highly suggestive instruments of the earliest Neolithic. Here the authors extend the distribution of rondels further to the north-east, with the discovery and verification of the first example in Poland. As they point out, it is aerial photography that made this advance possible and we can expect many more discoveries, given appropriate investment in the art.

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The Phenomena La Hoguette and Limburg – Technological Aspects

Open Archaeology ◽

10.1515/opar-2020-0195 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 1295-1344

Author(s):

Erich Kirschneck

Keyword(s):

Central Europe ◽

Uniform Design ◽

Ceramic Production ◽

Knowledge Transmission ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

Transmission Networks ◽

Internal Development ◽

Vessel Morphology ◽

Technological Approach

Abstract La Hoguette and Limburg pottery and the role their producers played in the Neolithization of western Central Europe are still a matter of debate. These styles exist in parallel to Linearbandkeramik (LBK) but are different from LBK pottery and here called Non-LBK wares. The various Non-LBK styles are mainly defined based on decoration, but this does not coincide with important technological features. Therefore, an technological approach including the parameters of temper, vessel morphology, and firing methods was used for an alternative classification and to trace knowledge transmission networks. It is suggested that several technologically distinguishable Non-LBK pottery traditions of different geographical origins existed contemporaneously in western Central Europe. While the early mineral- and organic-tempered ware shows some similarities with the Earliest and Early LBK, the widespread early bone-tempered pottery with its uniform design cannot be traced back to either Cardial or LBK pottery. This is probably the oldest pottery in western Central Europe. This means that here pottery emerged first as a tradition outside both the LBK and Cardial cultures. Increasing interaction between producers of various Non-LBK wares and LBK pottery makers can then be traced over several centuries. All styles are shown to be diverse and dynamic and to be undergoing substantial internal development. The persistent mutual influencing is a key for understanding the development of Non-LBK pottery, as well as for innovations within LBK ceramic production. Here, a hypothesis is proposed that the makers of Non-LBK wares may be hunter-gatherers, although this cannot currently be proven.

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