While the series of events that shaped the transition between foraging societies and food producers are well described for Central and Southern Europe, genetic evidence from Northern Europe ...surrounding the Baltic Sea is still sparse. Here, we report genome-wide DNA data from 38 ancient North Europeans ranging from ~9500 to 2200 years before present. Our analysis provides genetic evidence that hunter-gatherers settled Scandinavia via two routes. We reveal that the first Scandinavian farmers derive their ancestry from Anatolia 1000 years earlier than previously demonstrated. The range of Mesolithic Western hunter-gatherers extended to the east of the Baltic Sea, where these populations persisted without gene-flow from Central European farmers during the Early and Middle Neolithic. The arrival of steppe pastoralists in the Late Neolithic introduced a major shift in economy and mediated the spread of a new ancestry associated with the Corded Ware Complex in Northern Europe.
Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of plague, is a bacterium associated with wild rodents and their fleas. Historically it was responsible for three pandemics: the Plague of Justinian in the 6th ...century AD, which persisted until the 8th century 1; the renowned Black Death of the 14th century 2, 3, with recurrent outbreaks until the 18th century 4; and the most recent 19th century pandemic, in which Y. pestis spread worldwide 5 and became endemic in several regions 6. The discovery of molecular signatures of Y. pestis in prehistoric Eurasian individuals and two genomes from Southern Siberia suggest that Y. pestis caused some form of disease in humans prior to the first historically documented pandemic 7. Here, we present six new European Y. pestis genomes spanning the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age (LNBA; 4,800 to 3,700 calibrated years before present). This time period is characterized by major transformative cultural and social changes that led to cross-European networks of contact and exchange 8, 9. We show that all known LNBA strains form a single putatively extinct clade in the Y. pestis phylogeny. Interpreting our data within the context of recent ancient human genomic evidence that suggests an increase in human mobility during the LNBA, we propose a possible scenario for the early spread of Y. pestis: the pathogen may have entered Europe from Central Eurasia following an expansion of people from the steppe, persisted within Europe until the mid-Bronze Age, and moved back toward Central Eurasia in parallel with human populations.
•Six Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age European Y. pestis genomes were reconstructed•All Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Y. pestis form a single phylogenetic branch
Andrades Valtueña et al. present the first six European Y. pestis genomes dating from the Late Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age. These data suggest that Y. pestis entered Europe during a human migration around 4800 BP, persisted in Europe, and traveled back to Central Eurasia.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The original version of this Article omitted references to previous work, which are detailed in the associated Author Correction. These omissions have been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions ...of the Article.
In 2008 and 2010, two partly destroyed ship burials were discovered near Salme on the island of Saaremaa. During the archaeological excavations, at least 41 wholly or partially preserved skeletons ...were discovered, and a large number of artefacts were found, including a dozen single-sided antler combs. On the basis of the finds, as well as radiocarbon dating, the ship burials were dated to the Pre-Viking Period, while both the isotopic and archaeological evidence point towards central Sweden as the most probable origin of the buried individuals.
The combs from Salme have features that are generally consistent with the 8th century, with the closest parallels coming from the Mälar region of central Sweden. According to ZooMS and aDNA analyses, they are made of elk (Alces alces) and reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) antler. Elk inhabited the Mälar region, but reindeer antler had its origin in more northern regions. Most combs were clearly manufactured with great skill, and finished with care, though some details indicate differences in the skills of comb makers.
In the autumn of 2008 human and animal bones came to light during the cabling works in the village of Salme, on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia. Some days later a contour of an ancient boat was ...discovered. The ancient boat, as well as human and animal bones inside it, dates to the second half of the 7th century or the beginning of the 8th century. The osteological analyses of the human bone material featured the specific quality of this burial-skeletal remains of seven men, which are unknown in the boat- and ship-burials around the Baltic Sea and in the broader context of Northern Europe. The absence of bones of dogs and horses, which are very common in Scandinavian boat- and ship-burials, is also exceptional. Key words: boat-grave, human bones, osteology, bioarchaeology.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Three Iron Age cremation graves from south-eastern Estonia and four graves including cremations as well inhumations from western Estonia were analysed by osteological and palaeodemographic methods in ...order to estimate the age and sex composition of burial sites, and to propose some possible demographic figures and models for living communities.
The crude birth/death rate estimated on the basis of juvenility indices varied between 55.1‰ and 60.0‰ (58.5‰ on average) at Rõsna village in south-eastern Estonia in the Middle Iron Age. The birth/death rates based on juvenility indices for south eastern graves varied to a greater degree. The estimated crude birth/death rate was somewhat lower (38.9‰) at Maidla in the Late Iron Age and extremely high (92.1‰) at Maidla in the Middle Iron Age, which indicates an unsustainable community. High crude birth/death rates are also characteristic of Poanse tarand graves from the Pre-Roman Iron Age – 92.3‰ for the 1st grave and 69.6‰for the 2nd grave. Expectedly, newborn life expectancies are extremely low in both communities – 10.8 years at Poanse I and 14.4 years at Poanse II. Most likely, both Maidla I and Poanse I were unsustainable communities.
According to the main model where the given period of grave usage is 150 years, the burial grounds were most likely exploited by communities of 3–14 people. In most cases, this corresponds to one family or household. In comparison with other graves, Maidla II stone grave in western Estonia and Rõsna-Saare I barrow cemetery in south-eastern Estonia could have been used by a somewhat larger community, which may mean an extended family, a larger household or usage by two nuclear families.
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Isotopic proveniencing of all individuals from the ship and boat burials at Salme, Estonia, is the subject of this study of the interred human remains from around AD 750, at the beginning of the ...Viking period. The isotopic results indicate that the majority of these individuals came from a region with higher strontium isotopic ratios than those found in Estonia. There were five individuals, buried in Salme II-the ship burial with 34 individuals-who exhibited lower strontium isotope ratios that might have come from the Swedish island of Gotland or several other possible places. The combination of isotopic signals and archaeological information suggests that the majority of buried individuals (those with higher strontium isotope ratios) came from the Malaren Valley in east-central Sweden.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The identification of human remains is challenging mostly due to the bad condition of the remains and the available background information that is sometimes limited. The current case report is ...related to the identification of an unknown soldier from the Estonian War of Independence (1918-1920). The case includes an anthropological study of the remains, examinations of documents found with the exhumed remains, and kinship estimations based on archival documents, and DNA analyses. As the preliminary data pointed to remains of male origin, Y-chromosomal STR (short tandem repeat) analyses of 22 Y-STR loci were used to analyze the exhumed teeth. Reference samples from individuals from two paternal lineages were collected based on archival documents. Y-chromosomal STR results for the tooth samples were consistent with a patrilineal relationship to only one reference sample out of two proposed paternal lineages. Based on the provided pedigrees in the consistent case, the Y-STR results are approximately four million times more likely if the tooth sample originated from an individual related along the paternal line to the matching reference sample, than if the tooth sample originated from another person in the general population. Special considerations have to be met when limited evidence is available.