We extend the scope of European palaeogenomics by sequencing the genomes of Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,300 years old, 1.4-fold coverage) and Mesolithic (9,700 years old, 15.4-fold) males from ...western Georgia in the Caucasus and a Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,700 years old, 9.5-fold) male from Switzerland. While we detect Late Palaeolithic-Mesolithic genomic continuity in both regions, we find that Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG) belong to a distinct ancient clade that split from western hunter-gatherers ∼45 kya, shortly after the expansion of anatomically modern humans into Europe and from the ancestors of Neolithic farmers ∼25 kya, around the Last Glacial Maximum. CHG genomes significantly contributed to the Yamnaya steppe herders who migrated into Europe ∼3,000 BC, supporting a formative Caucasus influence on this important Early Bronze age culture. CHG left their imprint on modern populations from the Caucasus and also central and south Asia possibly marking the arrival of Indo-Aryan languages.
The Middle Stone Age (MSA) is associated with early behavioral innovations, expansions of modern humans within and out of Africa, and occasional population bottlenecks. Several innovations in the MSA ...are seen in an archaeological sequence in the rock shelter Sibudu (South Africa). At ~77,000 years ago, people constructed plant bedding from sedges and other monocotyledons topped with aromatic leaves containing insecticidal and larvicidal chemicals. Beginning at ~73,000 years ago, bedding was burned, presumably for site maintenance. By ~58,000 years ago, bedding construction, burning, and other forms of site use and maintenance intensified, suggesting that settlement strategies changed. Behavioral differences between ~77,000 and 58,000 years ago may coincide with population fluctuations in Africa.
Since 1992 the prehistoric Nivåfjord in northeast Zealand, Denmark, has yielded an appreciable number of inhumation burials and cremations dating to the Mesolithic, especially the sites of Nivå 10 ...and Nivågård. Unfortunately, the micro-region is characterised by poor organic preservation, restricting the successful application of biomolecular techniques to human remains, including large-scale radiocarbon dating programmes as well as both stable isotope and ancient DNA analyses. Here, we apply an alternative technique, an acid etch peptide-based method, to determine the sex of eight individuals from Nivå 10 as well as the Nivågård child. Moreover, we revisit the utility of stable carbon (δ13C), nitrogen (δ15N) and sulfur (δ34S) isotope analysis of human tissues to reconstruct the life histories and diets of 10 individuals from Nivå 10 as well as the Nivågård child. To contextualise further, we sampled 14 Capreolus capreolus and three Sus scrofa from the Nivågård site for stable isotope analysis. We demonstrate that sex can successfully be determined from contexts susceptible to poor organic preservation, and show that the Nivågård child spent a proportion of its life outside a sea spray-influenced environment, and consumed significant quantities of marine protein as demonstrated by its δ13C and δ34S values.
Since 1992 the prehistoric Nivåfjord in northeast Zealand, Denmark, has yielded an appreciable number of inhumation burials and cremations dating to the Mesolithic, especially the sites of Nivå 10 ...and Nivågård. Unfortunately, the micro-region is characterised by poor organic preservation, restricting the successful application of biomolecular techniques to human remains, including large-scale radiocarbon dating programmes as well as both stable isotope and ancient DNA analyses. Here, we apply an alternative technique, an acid etch peptide-based method, to determine the sex of eight individuals from Nivå 10 as well as the Nivågård child. Moreover, we revisit the utility of stable carbon (δ13C), nitrogen (δ15N) and sulfur (δ34S) isotope analysis of human tissues to reconstruct the life histories and diets of 10 individuals from Nivå 10 as well as the Nivågård child. To contextualise further, we sampled 14 Capreolus capreolus and three Sus scrofa from the Nivågård site for stable isotope analysis. We demonstrate that sex can successfully be determined from contexts susceptible to poor organic preservation, and show that the Nivågård child spent a proportion of its life outside a sea spray-influenced environment, and consumed significant quantities of marine protein as demonstrated by its δ13C and δ34S values.
The expansion of modern human populations in Africa 80,000 to 60,000 years ago and their initial exodus out of Africa have been tentatively linked to two phases of technological and behavioral ...innovation within the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa--the Still Bay and Howieson's Poort industries--that are associated with early evidence for symbols and personal ornaments. Establishing the correct sequence of events, however, has been hampered by inadequate chronologies. We report ages for nine sites from varied climatic and ecological zones across southern Africa that show that both industries were short-lived (5000 years or less), separated by about 7000 years, and coeval with genetic estimates of population expansion and exit times. Comparison with climatic records shows that these bursts of innovative behavior cannot be explained by environmental factors alone.
The spread of trapeze industries (the creation of trapeze-shaped flint tips) during Late Mesolithic is one of the most disruptive phenomena of technological change documented in the European ...Prehistory. Understanding the chronological patterns of this process requires (i) a critical evaluation of stratigraphic relationship between trapeze assemblages and radiocarbon samples, and (ii) considering different levels of chronological uncertainty according to the inbuilt age of the samples and the calibration process. In this paper, we critically evaluate and analyze the radiocarbon record of the first trapeze industries in the Iberian Peninsula. A dataset of 181 radiocarbon dates from 67 sites dated to 8800–8200 cal BP was collected and evaluated following a strict data quality control protocol, from which 135 dates of 53 sites were retained and classified according to a reliability index. Then, three different phase Bayesian chronological models were created to estimate the duration of the first spread of trapezes across Iberia, considering different levels of chrono-stratigraphic resolution. We find that trapeze industries appeared in the eastern half of Iberia, over an area of 330,000 km2 between 8505–8390 and 8425–8338 cal BP, spanning 0–85 yr (95.4% CI). When the oldest evidence of trapezes from Portugal are considered, the probability distribution expands (8943–8457 and 8686–7688 cal BP), due to the chronological uncertainty of human samples with marine diet and regional ΔR values applied. For the eastern half of Iberia, the current evidence indicates a very rapid spread of trapeze industries initiated in the Central-Western Pyrenees, suggesting cultural diffusion within Mesolithic social networks as the main driving mechanism.
The genomic history of southeastern Europe Mathieson, Iain; Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Songül; Posth, Cosimo ...
Nature (London),
03/2018, Volume:
555, Issue:
7695
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Farming was first introduced to Europe in the mid-seventh millennium bc, and was associated with migrants from Anatolia who settled in the southeast before spreading throughout Europe. Here, to ...understand the dynamics of this process, we analysed genome-wide ancient DNA data from 225 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and surrounding regions between 12000 and 500 bc. We document a west-east cline of ancestry in indigenous hunter-gatherers and, in eastern Europe, the early stages in the formation of Bronze Age steppe ancestry. We show that the first farmers of northern and western Europe dispersed through southeastern Europe with limited hunter-gatherer admixture, but that some early groups in the southeast mixed extensively with hunter-gatherers without the sex-biased admixture that prevailed later in the north and west. We also show that southeastern Europe continued to be a nexus between east and west after the arrival of farmers, with intermittent genetic contact with steppe populations occurring up to 2,000 years earlier than the migrations from the steppe that ultimately replaced much of the population of northern Europe.
ABSTRACT
In this paper the potential impact of the 9.3k cal a BP cooling event on the environment and human occupation in the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt region of NW Europe is investigated. Although various ...environmental (decreased fluvial activity, increased wildfires and changing vegetation) and cultural changes (lithic technology, raw material circulation, decreasing site density) can be identified in the (late) Boreal, a serious problem of equifinality remains. Lacking a high‐resolution chronology for these events, it is still difficult to separate the impact of gradual from punctuated climatic changes. However, at present it seems that (some) environmental and cultural changes were already ongoing before the 9.3k cal a BP event but were accelerated by the latter. To gain a better understanding of these processes, it is necessary to take a holistic, multidisciplinary approach towards the Early Holocene in the southern North Sea basin.
•We discuss prehistoric foragers’ ornamental traditions in Eastern Adriatic region.•We characterise ornamental choices at the site of Vela Spila (Croatia).•Our study is based on contextual, ...techno-functional, and experimental approaches.•Vela Spila appears unique as a Mesolithic procurement and processing centre for Columbella rustica.
This paper advances the current knowledge on past foragers’ ornamental traditions by comparing the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic personal adornments from the southeastern Mediterranean, with a particular focus on the site of Vela Spila (Korčula island, Croatia). The assemblages we discuss here date from c. 19,500–8150cal BP, with occupational evidence both before and after the Pleistocene–Holocene transition in the region. The assemblages from Vela Spila comprise one of the largest and richest records of prehistoric personal ornamentation in Southeastern Europe. Our analysis has allowed us to reconstruct changing traditions and technologies of social expression and symbolism in the Adriatic during a crucial period of social, technological, and environmental transition. In particular, our data reveal an apparent shift in ornamental traditions and technologies from the Late Palaeolithic, when diverse marine and terrestrial raw materials were collected and modified to make ornaments, to the Mesolithic, when a single marine gastropod was used exclusively. When these results are contextualised and compared across the Adriatic region, and, more broadly, at sites throughout southeastern Europe, Vela Spila appears unique in its significance as a procurement and processing centre for one important type of Mesolithic ornament, Columbella rustica. The repeatedly and exclusive selection of this marine gastropod to make ornaments during the Mesolithic seems to be a clue that it was fundamentally important for the construction and maintenance of identity and personhood.
The character of settlement patterns within the late Mesolithic communities of north-west Europe is a topic of substantial debate. An important case study concerns the five shell middens on the ...island of Oronsay, Inner Hebrides, western Scotland. Two conflicting interpretations have been proposed: the evidence from seasonality indicators and stable isotope analysis of human bones has been used to support a model of year-round settlement on this small island; alternatively, the middens have been interpreted as resulting from short-term intermittent visits to Oronsay within a regionally mobile settlement pattern. We contribute to this debate by describing Storakaig, a newly discovered site on the nearby island of Islay, undertaking a Bayesian chronological analysis and providing evidence for technological continuity between Oronsay and sites elsewhere in the region. While this new evidence remains open to alternative interpretation, we suggest that it makes regional mobility rather than year-round settlement on Oronsay a more viable interpretation for the Oronsay middens. Our analysis also confirms the likely overlap of the late Mesolithic with the earliest Neolithic within western Scotland.
•Mesolithic sedentism on the Isle of Oronsay, western Scotland is debated.•The discovery of a Mesolithic site on the adjacent island of Islay is described.•Bayesian chronological models for human settlement are posited.•Technological continuity between Oronsay and Storakaig is explored.•Late Mesolithic activity on Oronsay was part of a regional settlement system.
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