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Edited by T. Douglas Price, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Elsa M. Redmond July 26, 2017 (received for review April 19, 2017)
Significance
Paleogenetic and isotope data from human remains shed new light on residential rules revealing patrilocality and high female mobility in European prehistory. We show the crucial role of this institution and its impact on the transformation of population compositions over several hundred years. Evidence for an epoch-transgressing maternal relationship between two individuals demonstrates long-debated population continuity from the central European Neolithic to the Bronze Age. We demonstrate that a simple notion of “migration” cannot explain the complex human mobility of third millennium BCE societies in Eurasia. On the contrary, it appears that part of what archaeologists understand as migration is the result of large-scale institutionalized and possibly sex- and age-related individual mobility.
Abstract
Human mobility has been vigorously debated as a key factor for the spread of bronze technology and profound changes in burial practices as well as material culture in central Europe at the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. However, the relevance of individual residential changes and their importance among specific age and sex groups are still poorly understood. Here, we present ancient DNA analysis, stable isotope data of oxygen, and radiogenic isotope ratios of strontium for 84 radiocarbon-dated skeletons from seven archaeological sites of the Late Neolithic Bell Beaker Complex and the Early Bronze Age from the Lech River valley in southern Bavaria, Germany. Complete mitochondrial genomes documented a diversification of maternal lineages over time. The isotope ratios disclosed the majority of the females to be nonlocal, while this is the case for only a few males and subadults. Most nonlocal females arrived in the study area as adults, but we do not detect their offspring among the sampled individuals. The striking patterns of patrilocality and female exogamy prevailed over at least 800 y between about 2500 and 1700 BC. The persisting residential rules and even a direct kinship relation across the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age add to the archaeological evidence of continuing traditions from the Bell Beaker Complex to the Early Bronze Age. The results also attest to female mobility as a driving force for regional and supraregional communication and exchange at the dawn of the European metal ages.
Footnotes
↵1C. Knipper and A.M. contributed equally.
- ↵2To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: corina.knipper{at}cez-archaeometrie.de, krause{at}shh.mpg.de, or philipp.stockhammer{at}lmu.de.
Author contributions: C. Knipper, A.M., J.K., and P.W.S. designed research; C. Knipper, A.M., K.M., I.K., M.M., S.E.M., A.S., and P.W.S. performed research; C. Kociumaka and F.W. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; C. Knipper, A.M., K.M., J.K., and P.W.S. analyzed data; and C. Knipper, A.M., K.M., J.K., and P.W.S. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. T.D.P. is a Guest Editor invited by the Editorial Board.
Data deposition: The mtDNA sequences are deposited in GenBank (accession nos. MF498658–MF498737).
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1706355114/-/DCSupplemental.
Female exogamy and gene pool diversification
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