scholarly journals Demic and cultural diffusion propagated the Neolithic transition across different regions of Europe

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (106) ◽  
pp. 20150166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquim Fort
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Models ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Cultural Diffusion ◽  
Demic Diffusion

The Neolithic transition is the shift from hunting–gathering into farming. About 9000 years ago, the Neolithic transition began to spread from the Near East into Europe, until it reached Northern Europe about 5500 years ago. There are two main models of this spread. The demic model assumes that it was mainly due to the reproduction and dispersal of farmers. The cultural model assumes that European hunter–gatherers become farmers by acquiring domestic plants and animals, as well as knowledge, from neighbouring farmers. Here we use the dates of about 900 archaeological sites to compute a speed map of the spread of the Neolithic transition in Europe. We compare the speed map to the speed ranges predicted by purely demic, demic–cultural and purely cultural models. The comparison indicates that the transition was cultural in Northern Europe, the Alpine region and west of the Black Sea. But demic diffusion was at work in other regions such as the Balkans and Central Europe. Our models can be applied to many other cultural traits. We also propose that genetic data could be gathered and used to measure the demic kernels of Early Neolithic populations. This would lead to an enormous advance in Neolithic spread modelling.

scholarly journals Estimating the relative importance of demic and cultural diffusion in the spread of the Neolithic in Scandinavia

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (148) ◽  
pp. 20180597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquim Fort ◽  
Maria Mercè Pareta ◽  
Lasse Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Spread Rate ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Cultural Diffusion ◽  
Early Farming ◽  
Wave Of Advance ◽  
Early Farmers ◽  
Parameter Values ◽  
Demic Diffusion

Using a database of early farming sites in Scandinavia, we estimate that the spread rate of the Neolithic was in the range 0.44–0.66 km yr −1 . This is substantially slower (by about 50%) than the rate in continental Europe. We interpret this result in the framework of a new mathematical model that includes horizontal cultural transmission (acculturation), vertical cultural transmission (interbreeding) and demic diffusion (reproduction and dispersal of farmers). To parametrize the model, we estimate reproduction rates of early farmers using archaeological data (sum-calibrated probabilities for the dates of early Neolithic Scandinavian sites) and use them in a wave-of-advance model for the first time. Comparing the model with the archaeological data, we find that the percentage of the spread rate due to cultural diffusion is below 50% (except for very extreme parameter values, and even for them it is below 54%). This strongly suggests that the spread of the Neolithic in Scandinavia was driven mainly by demic diffusion. This conclusion, obtained from archaeological data, agrees qualitatively with the implications of ancient genetic data, but the latter are yet too few in Scandinavia to produce any quantitative percentage for the spread rate due to cultural diffusion. We also find that, on average, fewer than eight hunter–gatherers were incorporated in the Neolithic communities by each group of 10 pioneering farmers, via horizontal and/or vertical cultural transmission.

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

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-476 ◽  
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.

scholarly journals The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Gallego-Llorente ◽  
S. Connell ◽  
E. R. Jones ◽  
D. C. Merrett ◽  
Y. Jeon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Zagros Mountains ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Western Iran ◽  
Agricultural Transition ◽  
Cultural Diffusion ◽  
A Site

AbstractThe agricultural transition profoundly changed human societies. We sequenced and analysed the first genome (1.39×) of an early Neolithic woman from Ganj Dareh, in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, a site with early evidence for an economy based on goat herding,ca. 10,000 BP. We show that Western Iran was inhabited by a population genetically most similar to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus, but distinct from the Neolithic Anatolian people who later brought food production into Europe. The inhabitants of Ganj Dareh made little direct genetic contribution to modern European populations, suggesting they were somewhat isolated from other populations in the region. Runs of homozygosity are of a similar length to those from Neolithic Anatolians, and shorter than those of Caucasus and Western Hunter-Gatherers, suggesting that the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh did not undergo the large population bottleneck suffered by their northern neighbours. While some degree of cultural diffusion between Anatolia, Western Iran and other neighbouring regions is possible, the genetic dissimilarity of early Anatolian farmers and the inhabitants of Ganj Dareh supports a model in which Neolithic societies in these areas were distinct.

scholarly journals Seals, contracts and tokens in the Balkans Early Neolithic: where in the puzzle

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 115-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihael Budja
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Southeastern Europe ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Population Replacement ◽  
Exchange Networks ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Selective Integration ◽  
Demic Diffusion

Paper discusses Early Neolithic seals, contracts and tokens in the context of Neolithization processes in southeastern Europe. Paper analyses the assemblages, contexts and the patterns of regional and interregional distributions. The results contradict traditional models as the objects appearance and distributions can no longer support the models of colonization, demic diffusion and population replacement in the context of the transition to farming in the Balkans. The paper argues they were well embeddedin the Early Neolithic Balkans koine, where the transformation of hunter- gathering into farming societies took place in an arena of selective integration of the new technologies and social practices as much as the result of intensive connections and exchange networks.

scholarly journals Neolithic skull shapes and demic diffusion: a bioarchaeological investigation into the nature of the Neolithic transition

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 61-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Pinhasi
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Maps ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Population Movements ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Geographical Variations ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Archaeological Analysis ◽  
East Anatolia ◽  
Demic Diffusion

There is a growing body of evidence that the spread of farming in Europe was not a single uniform process, but that it involved a complex set of processes such as demic diffusion, folk migration, frontier mobility, and leapfrog colonisation. Archaeogenetic studies, which examine contemporary geographical variations in the frequencies of various genetic markers have not succeeded in addressing the complex Neolithisation process at the required level of spatial and temporal resolution. Moreover, these studies are based on modern populations, and their interpretive genetic maps are often affected by post-Neolithic dispersals, migrations, and population movements in Eurasia. Craniometric studies may provide a solid link between the archaeological analysis of past events and their complex relationship to changes and fluctuations in corresponding morphological and thus biological variations. This paper focuses on the study of craniometric variations between and within Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Pottery Neolithic, and Early Neolithic specimens from the Near East, Anatolia and Europe. It addresses the meaning of the observed multivariate morphometric variations in the context of the spread of farming in Europe.

scholarly journals Population Replacement in Early Neolithic Britain

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selina Brace ◽  
Yoan Diekmann ◽  
Thomas J. Booth ◽  
Zuzana Faltyskova ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
Genomic Data ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Genetic Affinity ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Population Replacement ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Neolithic Cultures

The roles of migration, admixture and acculturation in the European transition to farming have been debated for over 100 years. Genome-wide ancient DNA studies indicate predominantly Anatolian ancestry for continental Neolithic farmers, but also variable admixture with local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers1–9. Neolithic cultures first appear in Britain c. 6000 years ago (kBP), a millennium after they appear in adjacent areas of northwestern continental Europe. However, the pattern and process of the British Neolithic transition remains unclear10–15. We assembled genome-wide data from six Mesolithic and 67 Neolithic individuals found in Britain, dating from 10.5-4.5 kBP, a dataset that includes 22 newly reported individuals and the first genomic data from British Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Our analyses reveals persistent genetic affinities between Mesolithic British and Western European hunter-gatherers over a period spanning Britain’s separation from continental Europe. We find overwhelming support for agriculture being introduced by incoming continental farmers, with small and geographically structured levels of additional hunter-gatherer introgression. We find genetic affinity between British and Iberian Neolithic populations indicating that British Neolithic people derived much of their ancestry from Anatolian farmers who originally followed the Mediterranean route of dispersal and likely entered Britain from northwestern mainland Europe.

scholarly journals Radiocarbon Chronology of the Shigir and Gorbunovo Archaeological Bog Sites, Middle Urals, Russia

Radiocarbon ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 54 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 783-794 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia E Zaretskaya ◽  
Sönke Hartz ◽  
Thomas Terberger ◽  
Svetlana N Savchenko ◽  
Mikhail G Zhilin
Keyword(s):  
Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Peat Bogs ◽  
Middle Urals ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Radiocarbon Chronology ◽  
First Time ◽  
Late Mesolithic ◽  
Ams Dates

Two well-known archaeological sites, the peat bogs of Shigir and Gorbunovo (Middle Urals, Russia), have been radiocarbon dated (61 conventional and accelerator mass spectrometry [AMS] dates from various natural and artifact samples). For the first time, a detailed chronology of Early to Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic occupation for this region has been obtained, and a paleoenvironmental history reconstructed. Based on these results, we propose that the Mesolithic settlement of the Middle Urals region started in the early Holocene, at the same time as in central and eastern Europe.

scholarly journals Strategy in the making: Russia-NATO Relations under Strategic Competition

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (27) ◽  
pp. 91-114
Author(s):  
Luis Alexander Montero Moncada ◽  
Maria Paula Velandia García
Keyword(s):  
World Politics ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
European Security ◽  
Black Sea Region ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Strategic Competition ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Potential Risks ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
The Eu

In this article, we examine the elements that are being developed by NATO and Russia in a strategic competition in Europe. Having analysed these elements, each sub-system, as described by the Realist Theory of International Relations, is facing major changes in today’s world politics. From Northern Europe to the Balkans and the Black Sea region, the analysis focuses on areas of tension that could potentially become problematic for the interaction between the two actors. Besides, the Baltic region is explained further due to its continuous activity regarding either hybrid or tradition war tactics. Finally, we draw a parallel between NATO, the EU and the USA as main actors in European Security and how the latter has been changing drastically since Donald Trump took office. We conclude by analysing potential risks, scenarios and conflicts between NATO and Russia in short range projections.

scholarly journals A Neolithic mega-tsunami event in the eastern Mediterranean: Prehistoric settlement vulnerability along the Carmel coast, Israel

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. e0243619
Author(s):  
Gilad Shtienberg ◽  
Assaf Yasur-Landau ◽  
Richard D. Norris ◽  
Michael Lazar ◽  
Tammy M. Rittenour ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Optically Stimulated Luminescence ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Level Curves ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Marine Sand ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Global And Local ◽  
Tsunami Event

Tsunami events in antiquity had a profound influence on coastal societies. Six thousand years of historical records and geological data show that tsunamis are a common phenomenon affecting the eastern Mediterranean coastline. However, the possible impact of older tsunamis on prehistoric societies has not been investigated. Here we report, based on optically stimulated luminescence chronology, the earliest documented Holocene tsunami event, between 9.91 to 9.29 ka (kilo-annum), from the eastern Mediterranean at Dor, Israel. Tsunami debris from the early Neolithic is composed of marine sand embedded within fresh-brackish wetland deposits. Global and local sea-level curves for the period, 9.91–9.29 ka, as well as surface elevation reconstructions, show that the tsunami had a run-up of at least ~16 m and traveled between 3.5 to 1.5 km inland from the palaeo-coastline. Submerged slump scars on the continental slope, 16 km west of Dor, point to the nearby “Dor-complex” as a likely cause. The near absence of Pre-Pottery Neolithic A-B archaeological sites (11.70–9.80 cal. ka) suggest these sites were removed by the tsunami, whereas younger, late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B-C (9.25–8.35 cal. ka) and later Pottery-Neolithic sites (8.25–7.80 cal. ka) indicate resettlement following the event. The large run-up of this event highlights the disruptive impact of tsunamis on past societies along the Levantine coast.

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