Detlef Gronenborn

Ancient DNA from the first European farmers in 7500-year-old Neolithic sites

The ancestry of modern Europeans is a subject of debate among geneticists, archaeologists, and anthropologists. A crucial question is the extent to which Europeans are descended from the first European farmers in the Neolithic Age 7500 years ago or from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers who were present in Europe since 40,000 years ago. Here we present an analysis of ancient DNA from early European farmers. We successfully extracted and sequenced intact stretches of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 24 out of 57 Neolithic skeletons from various locations in Germany, Austria, and Hungary. We found that 25% of the Neolithic farmers had one characteristic mtDNA type and that this type formerly was widespread among Neolithic farmers in Central Europe. Europeans today have a 150-times lower frequency (0.2%) of this mtDNA type, revealing that these first Neolithic farmers did not have a strong genetic influence on modern European female lineages. Our finding lends weight to a proposed Paleolithic ancestry for modern Europeans.

Ancient DNA Reveals Prehistoric Gene-Flow from Siberia in the Complex Human Population History of North East Europe

North East Europe harbors a high diversity of cultures and languages, suggesting a complex genetic history. Archaeological, anthropological, and genetic research has revealed a series of influences from Western and Eastern Eurasia in the past. While genetic data from modern-day populations is commonly used to make inferences about their origins and past migrations, ancient DNA provides a powerful test of such hypotheses by giving a snapshot of the past genetic diversity. In order to better understand the dynamics that have shaped the gene pool of North East Europeans, we generated and analyzed 34 mitochondrial genotypes from the skeletal remains of three archaeological sites in northwest Russia. These sites were dated to the Mesolithic and the Early Metal Age (7,500 and 3,500 uncalibrated years Before Present). We applied a suite of population genetic analyses (principal component analysis, genetic distance mapping, haplotype sharing analyses) and compared past demographic models through coalescent simulations using Bayesian Serial SimCoal and Approximate Bayesian Computation. Comparisons of genetic data from ancient and modern-day populations revealed significant changes in the mitochondrial makeup of North East Europeans through time. Mesolithic foragers showed high frequencies and diversity of haplogroups U (U2e, U4, U5a), a pattern observed previously in European hunter-gatherers from Iberia to Scandinavia. In contrast, the presence of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups C, D, and Z in Early Metal Age individuals suggested discontinuity with Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and genetic influx from central/eastern Siberia. We identified remarkable genetic dissimilarities between prehistoric and modern-day North East Europeans/Saami, which suggests an important role of post-Mesolithic migrations from Western Europe and subsequent population replacement/extinctions. This work demonstrates how ancient DNA can improve our understanding of human population movements across Eurasia. It contributes to the description of the spatio-temporal distribution of mitochondrial diversity and will be of significance for future reconstructions of the history of Europeans.

Response to Comment on “Ancient DNA from the First European Farmers in 7500-Year-Old Neolithic Sites”

On the basis of analysis of ancient DNA from early European farmers, Haak et al. (Reports, 11 November 2005, p. 1016) argued for the Paleolithic ancestry of modern Europeans. We stress that the study is more limited in scope than the authors claim, in part because not all of the skeletal samples date to the time of the Neolithic transition in a given area of Europe.

The massacre mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten reveals new insights into collective violence in Early Neolithic Central Europe

Significance The Early Neolithic massacre-related mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten presented here provides new data and insights for the ongoing discussions of prehistoric warfare in Central Europe. Although several characteristics gleaned from the analysis of the human skeletal remains support and strengthen previous hypotheses based on the few known massacre sites of this time, a pattern of intentional mutilation of violence victims identified here is of special significance. Adding another key site to the evidence for Early Neolithic warfare generally allows more robust and reliable reconstructions of the possible reasons for the extent and frequency of outbreaks of lethal mass violence and the general impact these events had on shaping the further development of the Central European Neolithic. Conflict and warfare are central but also disputed themes in discussions about the European Neolithic. Although a few recent population studies provide broad overviews, only a very limited number of currently known key sites provide precise insights into moments of extreme and mass violence and their impact on Neolithic societies. The massacre sites of Talheim, Germany, and Asparn/Schletz, Austria, have long been the focal points around which hypotheses concerning a final lethal crisis of the first Central European farmers of the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik Culture (LBK) have concentrated. With the recently examined LBK mass grave site of Schöneck-Kilianstädten, Germany, we present new conclusive and indisputable evidence for another massacre, adding new data to the discussion of LBK violence patterns. At least 26 individuals were violently killed by blunt force and arrow injuries before being deposited in a commingled mass grave. Although the absence and possible abduction of younger females has been suggested for other sites previously, a new violence-related pattern was identified here: the intentional and systematic breaking of lower limbs. The abundance of the identified perimortem fractures clearly indicates torture and/or mutilation of the victims. The new evidence presented here for unequivocal lethal violence on a large scale is put into perspective for the Early Neolithic of Central Europe and, in conjunction with previous results, indicates that massacres of entire communities were not isolated occurrences but rather were frequent features of the last phases of the LBK.

Durbi Takusheyi: a high-status burial site in the western Central bilād al-sūdān

Durbi Takusheyi is a burial site composed of at least eight mounds located between the modern towns of Katsina and Daura in northern Nigeria. Parts of the mounds were first excavated in 1907 by Herbert Richmond Palmer in cooperation with the Emir of Katsina and later again in 1992 in the course of a German research project under the lead of Dierk Lange, Bayreuth. After the 1992 excavation, the retained blocks were stored in the Jos Museum, Nigeria, for further analyses. In 2007 the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (RGZM) and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria (NCMM) started a project with the objective of completely restoring and analyzing the excavated artefacts. While the remains of the first excavation appear to be lost with only minimal information preserved, the three mounds excavated in 1992 each contained a single interment in the centre of the mound, all three with various burial goods produced from inorganic (metal, glass, stone, cowries) and organic material (cloth, wood, hides). Many artefacts are of regional provenance but some were also imported from distant regions of the Islamic world. Following the currently available radiocarbon measurements, one group of the burials would date to the earlier fourteenth century AD, and judging from typology and art history another burial dates to the later fifteenth/early sixteenth centuries. The site thus covers a crucial phase in history during which the Hausa city states emerged, indicating shifting contacts to the Mediterranean and to the Middle East.

Graham Connah: an archaeologist's life in Africa and in Australia

This special issue of Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa contains papers written in honour of Graham Connah, one of the most widely known and widely respected of Africanist archaeologists and writers on the archaeology of African societies. The papers in this issue were first presented at a conference session held in Graham’s honour at the biennial meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists held in Frankfurt, Germany, in September 2008. The diversity of research interests and approaches evident in these papers is in itself a testament to Graham’s influence in Africanist archaeology, both in terms of his research in different parts of the continent and of his constant engagement with the data of archaeological research and with the different research approaches that may be required to best interpret those data. One of the elements that has always been evident in his work is the way in which data from various sources, archaeological, environmental and otherwise, are meticulously evaluated and deployed in the pursuit of regional reconstructions that were both reliable and as complete as possible. On a continent where the archaeological record is still very often fragmentary and incomplete * often almost unknown * this inclusive approach seems far more worthwhile than the narrow parochialism that is the norm in some other parts of the world. Graham Connah has, over the last five decades, been one of the most important archaeologists working on the Holocene prehistory of the African continent. The range of his interests can be seen in the range of his research sites: in both western and eastern Africa, of course, from Benin City to the Lake Chad Basin to Egyptian Nubia and to Uganda, and, just as importantly, in Australia. For the most part, this has involved investigations of sites attributable to food-producing populations, ranging in size from small-scale farming communities in the Lake Chad Basin, from well before the appearance of iron technologies, to communities enmeshed in the social and political complexities of African states, at Benin City and Kibiro for example, to the historical archaeology that he has done in Australia. His productivity in dealing with these topics can be gauged from the extraordinarily impressive bibliography of his work, which he has kindly provided to us, and that we have included in this issue (Connah 2012). This range of interests and involvements across Africa, combined with a strongly comparative research stance and an interest in and great facility for clear and precise