Volcanic climate forcing, extreme cold and the Neolithic Transition in the northern US Southwest

The impacts on global climate of the AD 536 and 541 volcanic eruptions are well attested in palaeoclimatic datasets and in Eurasian historical records. Their effects on farmers in the arid uplands of western North America, however, remain poorly understood. The authors investigate whether extreme cold caused by these eruptions influenced the scale, scope and timing of the Neolithic Transition in the northern US Southwest. Archaeological tree-ring and radiocarbon dates, along with settlement survey data suggest that extreme cooling generated the physical and social space that enabled early farmers to transition from kin-focused socio-economic strategies to increasingly complex and widely shared forms of social organisation that served as foundational elements of burgeoning Ancestral Pueblo societies.

Neolithic demic diffusion

In 1978, Paolo Menozzi, Alberto Piazza, and Luca Cavalli-Sforza paved the ground for a new multidisciplinary approach to the study of human prehistory, interpreting genetic evidence in the light of archaeological information. By producing synthetic maps of allele frequencies and summarizing them by principal component analysis (PCA), they identified an association between patterns in genetic diversity across Europe and in the Neolithic archaeological record showing the earliest documented dates of farming societies. Based on this observation, they proposed a model of demic diffusion from the Near East. They argued that the observed patterns were the result of population growth due to increased food availability in early farming communities, westward dispersal of early farmers, and relative isolation between dispersing farmers and local hunter-gatherers. These results played a major role in our understanding of the Neolithic transition, but were also criticized on methodological grounds. For instance, it has become increasingly clear that the interpretation of PCA plots is less straightforward than originally thought, and correlations should be corroborated by explicit comparison of alternative demographic models. Despite these valid criticisms, genetic and genomic studies, including those involving ancient DNA, have largely confirmed the crucial role of the Neolithic transition as a process of demographic change in European prehistory, with some qualifications. Today, there is still much to be learned about the details of that complex history, but many researchers regard the European population structure as largely reflecting the genetic consequences of three major migrations: from Africa in Upper Paleolithic times, from the Near East at the beginning of the Neolithic, and from the eastern steppes in the Bronze Age. This deep structure has not been erased, despite many additional processes involving historical migrations, isolation (i.e., drift) and local gene flow, and has been recognized thanks to the pioneering work of Menozzi, Piazza and Cavalli-Sforza. Based on “Menozzi P, Piazza A, Cavalli-Sforza LL Synthetic maps of human gene frequencies in Europeans. Science 1978;201:786-792.”

The Indian behind the Artefact or Things behind the Process?: Humanism, Post-humanism and the Transition to the Neolithic

In recent years, traditional models produced to ac- count for the transition to the Neolithic have been challenged with the creation of narratives that seek to portray the character of this change in specific socio- historical milieus. At the other end of the spectrum, approaches influenced by the material turn have read- dressed this context, defining the Neolithic as a spe- cific horizon within an ever-increasing entanglement. Whilst these interpretive frameworks have yet not been challenged, they might gradually give rise to a new polarization in the debate about the Mesolithic- Neolithic transition. These approaches differ not only in that they operate at different scales of analysis (lived experience, macro-scale). They ultimately echo the humanist/post-humanist debate currently held in theoretical archaeology. In this article, I argue that neither of these ap- proaches is successful in revealing the complex set of forces that triggered the transition to the Neolithic. Drawing from this discussion, I suggest that a more comprehensive review of this context of change re- quires the fusion of elements discussed by these mod- els. This situation hastens new challenges to archaeo- logical practice, and it raises a series of questions on the current state of archaeological theory.

Prehistoric Grinding Tools as Metaphorical Traces of the Past

The predominant interpretation of reciprocating grinding tools is generally couched in terms of low archaeological value, anonymity, simplicity, functionality and daily life of women. It is argued that biased opinions and a low form-variability have conspired to deny grinding tools all but superficial attention. Saddle-shaped grinding tools appear in the archaeological record in middle Sweden at the time of the Mesolithic — Neolithic transition. It is argued that Neolithic grinding tools are products of intentional design. Deliberate depositions in various ritual contexts reinforce the idea of grinding tools as prehistoric metaphors, with functional and symbolic meanings interlinked.

Crops, Cattle and Human DNA – The Motala Site and the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in Östergötland, Southern Sweden

Palaeogenetic research has recently questioned the notion that the transition to agriculture in south- ern Scandinavia was initiated by local groups of hunter-gatherers who adopted the new economy at the onset of the Neolithic. Instead, the transition is claimed to have been brought about by farmers who migrated to the region from the continent. In this paper we examine whether the idea of a migra- tion can be upheld when set against archaeologi- cal source materials from Östergötland in southern Sweden. Our findings indicate that the notion of a local adoption is supported by the archaeological sources from the area. We also claim that available palaeogenetic sources do not contradict the inter- pretation that local groups of hunter-gatherers ini- tiated the transition to agriculture.

Multi-isotope evidence of population aggregation in the Natufian and scant migration during the early Neolithic of the Southern Levant

Human mobility and migration are thought to have played essential roles in the consolidation and expansion of sedentary villages, long-distance exchanges and transmission of ideas and practices during the Neolithic transition of the Near East. Few isotopic studies of human remains dating to this early complex transition offer direct evidence of mobility and migration. The aim of this study is to identify first-generation non-local individuals from Natufian to Pre-Pottery Neolithic C periods to explore the scope of human mobility and migration during the Neolithic transition in the Southern Levant, an area that is central to this historical process. The study adopted a multi-approach resorting to strontium (87Sr/86Sr), oxygen (δ18OVSMOW) and carbon (δ13C) isotope ratio analyses of tooth enamel of 67 human individuals from five sites in Jordan, Syria, and Israel. The isotope ratios point both to a significant level of human migration and/or mobility in the Final Natufian which is compatible with early sedentarism and seasonal mobility and with population aggregation in early sedentary hamlets. The current findings, in turn, offer evidence that most individuals dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic were local to their respective settlements despite certain evidence of non-locals. Interestingly, isotopic data suggest that two possible non-local individuals benefitted from particular burial practices. The results underscore a decrease in human mobility and migration as farming became increasingly dominant among the subsistence strategies throughout the Neolithic transition of the Southern Levant.