In archaeological research, changes in material culture and the evolution of styles are taken as major indicators for socio-cultural transformation. They form the basis for typo-chronological ...classification and the establishment of phases and periods. Central European Bronze Age material culture from burials reveals changes during the Bronze Age and represents a perfect case study for analyzing phenomena of cultural change and the adoption of innovation in the societies of prehistoric Europe. Our study focuses on the large-scale change in material culture which took place in the second millennium BC and the emergence at the same period of new burial rites: the shift from inhumation burials in flat graves to complex mounds and simple cremation burials. Paul Reinecke was the first to divide the European Bronze Age (EBA) into two phases, Bz A1 and A2. The shift from the first to the second phase has so far been ascribed to technical advances. Our study adopted an innovative approach to quantifying this phenomenon. Through regressive reciprocal averaging and Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon-dated grave contexts located in Switzerland and southern Germany, we modelled chronological changes in the material culture and changes in burial rites in these regions in a probabilistic way. We used kernel density models to summarize radiocarbon dates, with the aim of visualizing cultural changes in the third and second millennium BC. In 2015, Stockhammer et al. cast doubt on the chronological sequence of the Reinecke phases of the EBA on the basis of newly collected radiocarbon dates from southern Germany. Our intervention is a direct response to the results of that study. We fully agree with Stockhammer's et al. dating of the start of EBA, but propose a markedly different dating of the EBA/MBA transition. Our modelling of radiocarbon data demonstrates a statistically significant typological sequence of phases Bz A1, Bz A2 and Bz B and disproves their postulated chronological overlap. The linking of the archaeological relative-chronological system with absolute dates is of major importance to understanding the temporal dimension of the EBA phases.
Abstract
Abrupt radiocarbon (
14
C) excursions, or Miyake events, in sequences of radiocarbon measurements from calendar-dated tree-rings provide opportunities to assign absolute calendar dates to ...undated wood samples from contexts across history and prehistory. Here, we report a tree-ring and
14
C-dating study of the Neolithic site of Dispilio, Northern Greece, a waterlogged archaeological site on Lake Kastoria. Findings secure an absolute, calendar-dated time using the 5259 BC Miyake event, with the final ring of the 303-year-long juniper tree-ring chronology dating to 5140 BC. While other sites have been absolutely dated to a calendar year through
14
C-signature Miyake events, Dispilio is the first European Neolithic site of these and it provides a fixed, calendar-year anchor point for regional chronologies of the Neolithic.
Genetic studies of Neolithic and Bronze Age skeletons from Europe have provided evidence for strong population genetic changes at the beginning and the end of the Neolithic period. To further ...understand the implications of these in Southern Central Europe, we analyze 96 ancient genomes from Switzerland, Southern Germany, and the Alsace region in France, covering the Middle/Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age. Similar to previously described genetic changes in other parts of Europe from the early 3rd millennium BCE, we detect an arrival of ancestry related to Late Neolithic pastoralists from the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Switzerland as early as 2860-2460 calBCE. Our analyses suggest that this genetic turnover was a complex process lasting almost 1000 years and involved highly genetically structured populations in this region.
In the last decade, ancient DNA research has grown rapidly and started to overcome several of its earlier limitations through Next-Generation-Sequencing (NGS). Among other advances, NGS allows direct ...estimation of sample contamination from modern DNA sources. First NGS-based approaches of estimating contamination measured heterozygosity. These measurements, however, could only be performed on haploid genomic regions, i.e. the mitochondrial genome or male X chromosomes, but provided no measures of contamination in the nuclear genome of females with their two X chromosomes. Instead, female nuclear contamination is routinely extrapolated from mitochondrial contamination estimates, but it remains unclear if this extrapolation is reliable and to what degree variation in mitochondrial to nuclear DNA ratios affects this extrapolation. We therefore analyzed ancient DNA from 317 samples of different skeletal elements from multiple sites, spanning a temporal range from 7,000 BP to 386 AD. We found that the mitochondrial to nuclear DNA (mt/nc) ratio negatively correlates with an increase in endogenous DNA content and strongly influenced mitochondrial and nuclear contamination estimates in males. The ratio of mt to nc contamination estimates remained stable for overall mt/nc ratios below 200, as found particularly often in petrous bones but less in other skeletal elements and became more variable above that ratio.
Lake Burgäschi is a small lake on the Swiss Plateau, which has been inhabited since the Mesolithic, but is best known for its Neolithic lakeside settlements. Archaeological research has been ...conducted at Lake Burgäschi for the last 170 years, undergoing all the developments to modern archaeology. Recently, Lake Burgäschi has been re-explored as part of an interdisciplinary research project under the direction of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bern. Excavations were carried out at various sites around Lake Burgäschi, allowing for a new precise chronological classification of already known sites, but also revealing previously unknown settlement sites on the lakeshore. Furthermore, by means of interdisciplinary investigations on the pottery, animal and human bones as well as flint artefacts, previous knowledge on subsistence, mobility and land-use has been substantially extended. The present volume closes a long lasting research gap and combines new results with ancient data to a comprehensive synthesis.
Seeufersiedlungen mit Feuchtbodenerhaltung sind für die Erforschung des Neolithikums des Alpenvorlandes von herausragender Bedeutung. Die ausserordentlich gute Erhaltung der Siedlungsschichten lässt ...weitgehende Einblicke in die Lebensweise der prähistorischen Menschen zu. Das Hinterland der grossen Seen ist im Gegensatz dazu weniger gut untersucht. Eine Schlüsselrolle bei dessen Erforschung nehmen die zahlreichen Kleinseen des Schweizerischen Mittellandes ein. Auch an deren Ufern finden sich prähistorische Siedlungsspuren mit Feuchtbodenerhaltung. Der Burgäschisee, gelegen auf der Kantonsgrenze zwischen Bern und Solothurn, ist ein solcher Kleinsee. Die Umgebung weist bereits Siedlungsspuren aus dem Paläolithikum und dem Mesolithikum auf, bedeutend sind aber vor allem die gut erhaltenen Ufersiedlungen des Neolithikums. Seit 170 Jahren wird am Burgäschisee archäologisch geforscht. Seine Erforschung machte nicht nur die Entwicklung zur modernen Archäologie durch, sondern prägte den heute üblichen interdisziplinären Ansatz in der Prähistorischen Archäologie mit. Zwischen 2015 und 2017 wurde der Burgäschisee im Rahmen des vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds geförderten Forschungsprojektes «Beyond Lake Villages» erneut erforscht. Unter Leitung der Universität Bern wurden Grabungen und Sondierungen an verschiedenen Orten rund um den See vorgenommen. Es war wichtig, die bereits bekannten Fundstellen mit modernen Datierungsmethoden präziser chronologisch einordnen zu können. Darüber hinaus wurden auch neue Fundstellen entdeckt. Die Analyse der Befunde aus den alten und neuen Grabungen ergab neue Einblicke in das Siedlungsverhalten an diesem Kleinsee im Neolithikum. Eingehende und unter Einbezug naturwissenschaftlicher Methoden durchgeführte Untersuchungen der verschiedenen Artefaktkategorien lieferten neue Erkenntnisse zu Subsistenz, Mobilität, Vernetzung
und Landnutzung der neolithischen Siedler. Der vorliegende Band schliesst ein lange währendes Desiderat und kombiniert neue Forschungsergebnisse mit älteren Daten zu einer umfassenden Synthese.
This paper presents the results of the provenience analysis of siliceous artefacts from Neolithic lakeshore settlements studied in the scope of the SNSF-project MET (“Mobilities, entanglements and ...transformations in Neolithic societies on the Swiss Plateau (3900-3500 BCE) supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Project No 100011 156205). The aim of this paper is to compare the cultural entanglements as defined by the pottery studies with the regions of origins of the knappable siliceous sedimentary rocks (KSSR) raw materials. The analysed siliceous artefacts were found in cultural layers of wetland settlements in the Northern Alpine Foreland, most of which are dated dendrochronologically with extreme precision. The sources of the raw materials were determined by the identification of the sedimentary microfacies of the siliceous artefacts, which allows the accurate location of the exploited outcrops without destroying the artefacts. This enabled detailed insights into complex entanglements, ties and mobility patterns in the raw material procurement between settlement communities on the Swiss Plateau, southern Germany and eastern France. Furthermore, these results were compared visually with stylistic entanglements in the pottery of the 4th millennium BCE. As a first attempt in this direction, this paper shows the potential of studies on mobility patterns when different find categories are studied in combination regarding their raw materials but also their typology.
Archaeological leather samples recovered from the ice field at the Schnidejoch Pass (altitude 2756 m amsl) in the western Swiss Alps were studied using optical, chemical molecular and isotopic (δ
13C ...and δ
15N of the bulk leather, and compound-specific δ
13C analyses of the organic-solvent extracted fatty acids) methods to obtain insight into the origin of the leather and ancient tanning procedures. For comparison, leathers from modern native animals in alpine environment (red deer, goat, sheep, chamois, and calf/cow) were analyzed using the same approach. Optical and electron microscopically comparisons of Schnidejoch and modern leathers showed that the gross structure (pattern of collagen fibrils and intra-fibrils material) of archaeological leather had survived essentially intact for five millennia. The SEM studies of the hairs from the most important archaeological find, a Neolithic leather legging, show a wave structure of the hair cuticle, which is a diagnostic feature for goatskins. The variations of the bulk
δ
13C and
δ
15N values, and
δ
13C values of the main fatty acids are within the range expected for pre-industrial temperate C
3 environment. The archaeological leather samples contain a mixture of indigenous (from the animal) and exogenous plant/animal lipids. An important amount of waxy
n-alkanes,
n-alkan-1-ols and phytosterols (β-sitosterol, sitostanol) in all samples, and abundant biomarker of conifers (nonacosan-10-ol) in the legging leathers clearly indicate that the Neolithic people were active in a subalpine coniferous forest, and that they used an aqueous extract of diverse plant material for tanning leather.
Only a few sites in the Alps have produced archaeological finds from melting ice. To date, prehistoric finds from four sites dating from the Neolithic period, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age have ...been recovered from small ice patches (Schnidejoch, Lötschenpass, Tisenjoch, and Gemsbichl/Rieserferner). Glaciers, on the other hand, have yielded historic finds and frozen human remains that are not more than a few hundred years old (three glacier mummies from the 16th to the 19th century and military finds from World Wars I and II). Between 2003 and 2010, numerous archaeological finds were recovered from a melting ice patch on the Schnidejoch in the Bernese Alps (Cantons of Berne and Valais, Switzerland). These finds date from the Neolithic period, the Early Bronze Age, the Iron Age, Roman times, and the Middle Ages, spanning a period of 6000 years. The Schnidejoch, at an altitude of 2756 m asi, is a pass in the Wildhorn region of the western Bernese Alps. It has yielded some of the earliest evidence of Neolithic human activity at high altitude in the Alps. The abundant assemblage of finds contains a number of unique artifacts, mainly from organic materials like leather, wood, bark, and fibers. The site clearly proves access to high-mountain areas as early as the 5th millennium BC, and the chronological distribution of the finds indicates that the Schnidejoch pass was used mainly during periods when glaciers were retreating. Dans les Alpes, la glace en fusion a donné lieu à des découvertes archéologiques à seulement quelques emplacements. Jusqu'à maintenant, des découvertes préhistoriques en provenance de quatre sites remontant à la période néolithique, à l'âge du bronze et à l'âge du fer ont été faites dans de petits névés (Schnidejoch, Lötschenpass, Tisenjoch et Gemsbichl-Rieserferner). Par contre, les glaciers ont permis de faire des trouvailles historiques et de découvrir des restes humains qui ne datent pas de plus de quelques centaines d'années (soit trois momies de glaciers allant du XVIe au XIXe siècles et des découvertes militaires de la Première Guerre mondiale ainsi que de la Seconde Guerre mondiale). Entre 2003 et 2010, de nombreuses découvertes archéologiques ont été effectuées dans un névé en fusion du Schnidejoch, dans les Alpes bernoises (cantons de Berne et de Valais, en Suisse). Ces découvertes datent de la période néolithique, du début de l'âge du bronze, de l'âge du fer, de l'époque romaine et du Moyen-Âge, ce qui s'échelonne sur 6000 années. Le Schnidejoch, se trouvant à une altitude de 2 756 m, est un col de la région Wildhorn, dans l'ouest des Alpes bernoises. Cet endroit a permis de découvrir les plus anciennes preuves d'activité humaine de la période néolithique en haute altitude dans les Alpes. L'abondant assemblage de découvertes comprend un certain nombre d'artefacts uniques principalement composés de matériaux organiques comme le cuir, le bois, l'écorce et les fibres. Ce site prouve nettement que dès le cinquième millénaire av. J.-C, l'être humain avait accès aux régions en haute montagne. Par ailleurs, la répartition chronologique des découvertes indique que le col du Schnidejoch était principalement utilisé en périodes de recul des glaciers.
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