Europe has played a major role in dog evolution, harbouring the oldest uncontested Palaeolithic remains and having been the centre of modern dog breed creation. Here we sequence the genomes of an ...Early and End Neolithic dog from Germany, including a sample associated with an early European farming community. Both dogs demonstrate continuity with each other and predominantly share ancestry with modern European dogs, contradicting a previously suggested Late Neolithic population replacement. We find no genetic evidence to support the recent hypothesis proposing dual origins of dog domestication. By calibrating the mutation rate using our oldest dog, we narrow the timing of dog domestication to 20,000-40,000 years ago. Interestingly, we do not observe the extreme copy number expansion of the AMY2B gene characteristic of modern dogs that has previously been proposed as an adaptation to a starch-rich diet driven by the widespread adoption of agriculture in the Neolithic.
Abstract
The aim of the study is to investigate mitochondrial diversity in Neolithic Greece and its relation to hunter-gatherers and farmers who populated the Danubian Neolithic expansion axis. We ...sequenced 42 mitochondrial palaeogenomes from Greece and analysed them together with European set of 328 mtDNA sequences dating from the Early to the Final Neolithic and 319 modern sequences. To test for population continuity through time in Greece, we use an original structured population continuity test that simulates DNA from different periods by explicitly considering the spatial and temporal dynamics of populations. We explore specific scenarios of the mode and tempo of the European Neolithic expansion along the Danubian axis applying spatially explicit simulations coupled with Approximate Bayesian Computation. We observe a striking genetic homogeneity for the maternal line throughout the Neolithic in Greece whereas population continuity is rejected between the Neolithic and present-day Greeks. Along the Danubian expansion axis, our best-fitting scenario supports a substantial decrease in mobility and an increasing local hunter-gatherer contribution to the gene-pool of farmers following the initial rapid Neolithic expansion. Οur original simulation approach models key demographic parameters rather than inferring them from fragmentary data leading to a better understanding of this important process in European prehistory.
Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside ...farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disappeared and was replaced by haplotypes associated with European wild boars. This turnover could be accounted for by substantial gene flow from local European wild boars, although it is also possible that European wild boars were domesticated independently without any genetic contribution from the Near East. To test these hypotheses, we obtained mtDNA sequences from 2,099 modern and ancient pig samples and 63 nuclear ancient genomes from Near Eastern and European pigs. Our analyses revealed that European domestic pigs dating from 7,100 to 6,000 y BP possessed both Near Eastern and European nuclear ancestry, while later pigs possessed no more than 4% Near Eastern ancestry, indicating that gene flow from European wild boars resulted in a near-complete disappearance of Near East ancestry. In addition, we demonstrate that a variant at a locus encoding black coat color likely originated in the Near East and persisted in European pigs. Altogether, our results indicate that while pigs were not independently domesticated in Europe, the vast majority of human-mediated selection over the past 5,000 y focused on the genomic fraction derived from the European wild boars, and not on the fraction that was selected by early Neolithic farmers over the first 2,500 y of the domestication process.
The precise genetic origins of the first Neolithic farming populations in Europe and Southwest Asia, as well as the processes and the timing of their differentiation, remain largely unknown. ...Demogenomic modeling of high-quality ancient genomes reveals that the early farmers of Anatolia and Europe emerged from a multiphase mixing of a Southwest Asian population with a strongly bottlenecked western hunter-gatherer population after the last glacial maximum. Moreover, the ancestors of the first farmers of Europe and Anatolia went through a period of extreme genetic drift during their westward range expansion, contributing highly to their genetic distinctiveness. This modeling elucidates the demographic processes at the root of the Neolithic transition and leads to a spatial interpretation of the population history of Southwest Asia and Europe during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene.
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•European HGs diverged from SW Asian HGs during the LGM•Low genetic diversity of European HGs is due to a strong LGM demographic bottleneck•Ancestors of western early farmers emerged after repeated post-LGM admixtures•EFs strongly diverged from SW Asians during their expansion through Anatolia
Ancient DNA analysis and evolutionary modeling have allowed for the ancestral tracing of the Neolithic populations of Southwest Asia and Europe to resolve the genetic origins of the world’s first sedentary farmers.
Through the study of archaeological finds, explores the iconography of artistic imagery depicting magic, magical objects, and magical figures--including shamans and ancestral deities--in Europe ...during the prehistoric period. Discusses various types of art, including cave painting, figural sculpture, and incised pottery.
Im Gegensatz zu späteren Epochen haben wir aus der mitteleuropäischen Vorgeschichte keine schriftlichen Zeugnisse, die uns über Magie oder magische Objekte informieren. Daher sind wir auf die ...Erkenntnisse der Archäologie angewiesen. Überlieferungen aus Europa, in denen Magier, Schamanen oder Hausgötter eine Rolle spielen, zeigen jedoch, dass die Ursprünge magischen Handelns bereits in der Frühzeit zu suchen sind.
The aim of this book is to raise questions about the investigation of identity, community and change in prehistory, and to challenge the current state of debate in Central European Neolithic ...archaeology. Although the LBK is one of the best researched Neolithic cultures in Europe, here the material is used in order to further explore the interconnection between individuals, households, settlements and regions, explicitly addressing questions of Neolithic society and lived experience. By embracing a variety of approaches and voices, this volume draws out some of the cross-cutting concerns which unite LBK studies in their different regional research contexts and paves the way for further debate on the subject.
En Europe centrale, les bâtiments semi-excavés sont connus depuis le début du Néolithique. Au Néolithique ancien et moyen (du Rubané au Rössen), ils n'apparaissent cependant que sporadiquement dans ...des habitats à maisons de plain-pied sur poteaux. Leur taille, le plus souvent réduite, et leurs mobiliers (assez souvent des fusaïoles ou des restes de céréales) renvoient plutôt vers des activités de production ou de stockage. Au début du Néolithique récent (dans les "Schulterbandgruppen"), on trouve, dans le sud-ouest de l'Allemagne, des habitats dont les bâtiments semi-excavés servent d'habitations et où les grandes maisons sur poteaux ne sont pas représentées. Dans ce type d'habitat, la nouveauté réside dans le fait que le bâtiments semi-excavés constituent la seule forme d'habitation, mais aussi dans l'agencement de ces habitations. Les maisons sont, en effet, disposées parallèlement, relativement proches les unes des autres, le pignon orienté vers une véritable "rue" qui traverse le village d'ouest en est. On continue à trouver des bâtiments semiexcavés dans les cultures plus tardives, mais pas d'aussi grande taille et avec le même type d'organisation. Il semble donc que nous ayons affaire, avec ces villages à maisons semi-excavées du début du Néolithique récent, à un type d'habitat caractéristique pour cette période en Allemagne du Sud-Ouest. In Central Europe, houses with sunken floors (pit-houses) are known from the beginning of the Neolithic. In the Early and Middle Neolithic (Bandkeramik to Rössen) they are however found only sporadically in settlements where the main dwellings were ground-level post buildings. Their small size and the average finds (spindle-whorls and traces of grain) suggest they were used as workhuts or storehouses. At the beginning of the Later Neolithic ("Schulterbandgruppen") however, we find settlements in south-western Germany which consist solely of buildings with sunken floors, obviously serving as dwellings. The otherwise usual ground-level post houses are not found in these specific villages. The novelty of these settlements lies, on the one hand, in the fact that houses with sunken floors are the only habitations and, on the other hand, that the settlement structure is also different: the houses are set in parallel lines, fairly near to each other, all the gable ends facing towards one or several streets which cross the villages from west to east. In the following Neolithic cultures pit-houses are known but not in comparable size or settlement structure. We therefore have to consider these pit-house settlements as a characteristic type of dwelling for the beginning of the Late Neolithic in south-western Germany.
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