By UBC
Maria Teschler-Nicola
The most comprehensive genetic study to date on the composition of early Neolithic farming societies in Central Europe was recently published in Nature Human Behaviour. This study, which integrates genetic, archaeological, and anthropological research findings, involved contributions from colleagues at the University of Vienna, Harvard University (USA), as well as the current UBC project team from the Natural History Museum Vienna and the State Collections of Lower Austria.
At the heart of the research is the question of who the people were that introduced the new agricultural way of life to Central Europe around 8,000 to 7,500 years ago, migrating via the Balkans. Within just a few generations, this group spread across the Danube Valley and the Hungarian plains to Western France and, to the east, to Poland, Ukraine, and modern-day Romania.
The research revealed that these people formed a partially closely related, egalitarian group with minimal differences in access to food or other resources. Despite this, their end was marked by violent events, as evidenced by numerous fatal injuries found on human skeletal remains from the Schletz archaeological site in present-day Lower Austria. Similar findings from other European regions suggest that these violent events may be linked to the decline of the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK). Possible triggers for this crisis are debated, including various socio-economic or climatic scenarios.
The recent Nature article presents the results of genetic analyses performed on skeletal remains from a total of 250 individuals from 31 sites (including 87 genome analyses from eastern Austrian contexts). The findings demonstrated that the persons behind the Linear Pottery Culture were also mixed partly with indigenous hunter-gatherers. Additionally, kinship relations were identified, revealing that members of the LBK rapidly spread over hundreds of kilometers within just a few generations. Relatives were found as far apart as Slovakia and western Germany, with some sites over 800 km apart.
Genomic data also indicated a pattern of males staying in their native regions and being buried there, while females were more likely to relocate.
Perhaps the most intriguing and surprising discovery pertains to the site at Asparn: here, only a few kinship relationships were identified – between just 10 predominantly male individuals. Complex family trees, commonly reconstructed from burial ground analyses, were not observed. This unexpected finding might be due to the deficit of women in the Asparn collective or the settlement’s role as a central (retreat) location for neighboring populations during conflict.
Press Review (Selection)
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Article
Pere Gelabert, Penny Bickle, Daniela Hofmann, Maria Teschler-Nicola et al. Social and genetic diversity in first farmers of central Europe. Nature Human Behaviour.
