T. Douglas Price

Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia

The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000–1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. We show that the Bronze Age was a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacements, responsible for shaping major parts of present-day demographic structure in both Europe and Asia. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesized spread of Indo-European languages during the Early Bronze Age. We also demonstrate that light skin pigmentation in Europeans was already present at high frequency in the Bronze Age, but not lactose tolerance, indicating a more recent onset of positive selection on lactose tolerance than previously thought.

Mobility of Bell Beaker people revealed by strontium isotope ratios of tooth and bone : a study of southern Bavarian skeletal remains

In order to contribute to the continuing discussion of the mobility of the late neolithic Bell Beaker people, 69 skeletons from southern Bavaria were analyzed for the 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratios in tooth enamel and compact bone. Whereas Sr isotope ratios in the enamel of the first permanent molar match the Sr isotopic composition at the place of early childhood, the respective value in the adult femoral bone matches the Sr isotope ratio characteristic of the place of residence over the last few years prior to death. Significant differences between 87Sr/86Sr in these tissues indicate that 17.5–25% of these individuals changed residence during their lifetime. The overall direction of the migration, according to archaeological finds from the area, was toward the southwest. A relative surplus of migrating females and two cases of evidence for migration in children argue for the movement of small groups; exogamy might explain the higher numbers of immigrating females. With regard to current information on migration rates in prehistory, the southern Bavarian Bell Beaker people were indeed highly mobile, especially since the archaeometric method used in this study is likely to underestimate movement.

Prehistoric human migration in the Linearbandkeramik of Central Europe

This paper presents a revised chronology for the Linearbandkeramik and strontium isotope measurements of human skeletal material from two cemeteries which indicate a high incidence of migration. It appears that LBK farmers were highly migratory and interacted with surrounding communities.

Last hunters - first farmers : new perspectives on the prehistoric transition to agriculture

During virtually the entire four-million-year history of our habitation on this planet, humans have been hunters and gatherers, dependent for nourishment on the availability of wild plants and animals. Beginning about 10,000 years ago, however, the most remarkable phenomenon in the course of human prehistory was set in motion. At locations around the world, over a period of about 5000 years, hunters became farmers. The implications of this revolution in human activity and social organization reverberate down to the present day. In case studies ranging from the Far East to the American Southwest, the authors of Last Hunters-First Farmers provide a global perspective on contemporary research into the origins of agriculture. Downplaying more traditional explanations of the turn to agriculture, such as the influence of marginal environments and population pressures, the authors emphasize instead the importance of the resource-rich areas in which agriculture began, the complex social organizations already in place, the role of sedentism, and, in some locales, the advent of economic intensification and competition.

The Interpretation of archaeological spatial patterning

I. Spatial Analysis of Ethnoarchaeological Sites.- 1 * Site Structure, Kinship, and Sharing in Aboriginal Australia: Implications for Archaeology.- 2 * The Relationship between Nobility Strategies and Site Structure.- 3 * Distribution of Refuse-Producing Activities at Hadza Residential Base Camps: Implications for Analyses of Archaeological Site Structure.- 4 * Variability in Camp Structure and Bone Food Refuse Patterning at Kua San Hunter-Gatherer Camps.- 5 * Linking Ethnoarchaeological Interpretation and Archaeological Data: The Sensitivity of Spatial Analytical Methods to Postdepositional Disturbance.- II. Spatial Analysis of Archaeological Sites.- 6 * Interpreting Spatial Patterns at the Grotte XV: A Multiple-Method Approach.- 7 * Left in the Dust: Contextual Information in Model-Focused Archaeology.- 8 * Tool Use and Spatial Patterning: Complications and Solution.- 9 * Beyond the Formation of Hearth-Associated Artifact Assemblages.- III. Postscript: The End of Spatial Analysis.

Strontium Isotopes and Prehistoric Human Migration: The Bell Beaker Period in Central Europe

Human skeletal remains from Bell Beaker graves in southern Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Hungary were analyzed for information on human migration. Strontium isotope ratios were measured in bone and tooth enamel to determine if these individuals had changed ‘geological’ residence during their lifetimes. Strontium isotopes vary among different types of rock. They enter the body through diet and are deposited in the skeleton. Tooth enamel forms during early childhood and does not change. Bone changes continually through life. Difference in the strontium isotope ratio between bone and enamel in the same individual indicates change in residence. Results from the analysis of 81 Bell Beaker individuals indicated that 51 had moved during their lifetime. Information on the geology of south-central Europe, the application of strontium isotope analysis, and the relevant Bell Beaker sites is provided along with discussion of the results of the study.

Bone chemistry and past behavior: an overview

Human bone is a complex amalgam of compounds and chemicals—a variety of elements and isotopes—arranged in both organic and inorganic phases. In addition to the major components—calcium, phosphate and water—a number of minor and trace elements are also incorporated during the manufacture of bone tissue. These building materials are obtained by ingestion and the chemical composition of bone is thus in part a reflection of the local environment from which foods are obtained. Both isotopes and trace elements in prehistoric bone have been used to obtain information on human diet and the local environment. These new techniques are outlined here as a means for studying questions such as subsistence, status, and residence. Bone mineralization processes are also discussed as a means for the discovery of paleopathology and disease. Example applications are reviewed to document the potential of such techniques for the reconstruction of the past.

Migration in the Bell Beaker period of central Europe

Recent strontium isotope analysis of Beaker burials from Bavaria raises important new questions about prehistoric migrations in Europe.

1 – Aspects of Hunter–Gatherer Complexity

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the aspects of hunter–gatherer complexity. The archeology of hunter–gatherers has generally relied on rather simplistic models to describe preagricultural adaptations. A misplaced reliance upon ethnographically known groups has precluded an appreciation of the diversity of hunting–gathering adaptations. Foragers in more temperate and fertile areas of the world were replaced by farmers long before written documents recorded their way of life. Hunter–gatherers surviving to the ethnographic present do so in the most marginal areas of the planet. Cultural complexity, in the context of hunter–gatherer adaptations, is the major concern of this volume. Although a variety of terms—developed, advanced, elaborate, sophisticated—have been employed to describe this phenomenon, they are semantically weighted with a teleological notion of progress. Each of the above contributions emphasizes certain characteristics of increasing complexity. Intensification has been discussed in terms of a variety of factors: environment, resource availability, subsistence, sedentism, linear settlement, technology, storage, population, exchange, conflict, competition, social organization, territoriality, style, labor organization, craft specialization, inequality, and status differentiation.

The first settlers of Iceland: an isotopic approach to colonisation

The colonisation of the North Atlantic from the eighth century AD was the earliest expansion of European populations to the west. Norse and Celtic voyagers are recorded as reaching and settling in Iceland, Greenland and easternmost North America between c. AD 750 and 1000, but the date of these events and the homeland of the colonists are subjects of some debate. In this project, the birthplaces of 90 early burials from Iceland were sought using strontium isotope analysis. At least nine, and probably thirteen, of these individuals can be distinguished as migrants to Iceland from other places. In addition, there are clear differences to be seen in the diets of the local Icelandic peoples, ranging from largely terrestrial to largely marine consumption.