There are no signs of population stratification in the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK) communities that first spread agriculture across much of Europe, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Vienna and Harvard University. He said he couldn’t see it.
The manual labor of prehistoric central European women was more demanding than the rowing of today’s boat crews.
“The expansion of agriculture in Central Europe occurred in the 6th millennium BC,” said Dr. Pere Gelabert of the University of Vienna and colleagues.
“Within a few generations, Balkan farmers expanded down the Danube Valley into what is now France and eastward into what is now Hungary and Ukraine.”
“The cultural footprint of peasants is homogeneous across this region, which spans thousands of kilometers, but the lack of genetic data from multiple families makes it difficult to understand whether these communities lived on social equality. It has become difficult to assess which individuals have migrated and migrated across continents. “
In the study, Dr. Gelabert and co-authors sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 250 LBK individuals and other extensive datasets.
“The LBK people expanded over hundreds of kilometers in just a few generations,” Dr. Gelabert said.
“We found distant relatives in Slovakia and others in western Germany, more than 500 miles away.”
“In this study, we report for the first time that families in the study sites of Nitra in Slovakia and Polgar Ferencí Hat in Hungary do not differ in terms of the food they consume,” said Dr. Ron Pignasi, a researcher at the institute. said. University of Vienna.
“This suggests that the people living at these Neolithic sites were not stratified based on family or biological sex, understood as differences in access to resources and space. No signs of inequality are detected.”
The LBK culture came to an end around 5000 BC, and various theories have been proposed for its demise.
Some say this period was a period of social and economic crisis, often associated with widespread incidents of violence.
“One of the most famous incidents was the Asparn Schretz massacre in Lower Austria, where more than 100 people were recovered from a ditch,” the researchers said.
“This site, along with Herxheim in Germany, is one of the largest known assemblages of people who were violently murdered during the early Neolithic period, and the skeletons show signs of violence and multiple fractures.”
“Our in-depth genetic studies of the Asparn Schretz people show that fewer than 10 people are genetically related, making it unlikely that this genocide represents a single population. This casts doubt on the hypothesis that there is a
“Previous anthropological studies have noted an underrepresentation of young women, but the new data further support the complete absence of relatives.”
“The large number of children among the victims opens the door to different interpretations of this remarkable event of Neolithic violence.”
of findings Published in a magazine nature human behavior.
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P. Gelabert others. Social and genetic diversity among the first farmers of central Europe. Nat Hum Behavepublished online on November 29, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41562-024-02034-z
Source: www.sci.news
