Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – Patchwork families, where children from previous relationships or adopted and fostered children are raised together, are common today. Although often seen as modern, recent analysis of Neolithic human genetic material shows this family structure is ancient.
Around 3100 BCE, the Sorsum megalithic tomb served as a communal burial site for local farming communities. Genetic analyses now reveal that among those buried there was, among others, the son of a family from the Wetterau region, located approximately 250 kilometers to the south. Credit: Susanne Beyer, Inst. UFG/Uni Kiel
“We can show that even more than 5,000 years ago, people in Central Europe lived in communities where biological ties and social bonds were surprisingly flexible,” explains Professor Ben Krause-Kyora, an expert in ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis at the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB) at Kiel University and coordinator of the study.
Many Mysteries
The Neolithic period was a pivotal era in human history, when communities first settled and began practicing agriculture and livestock farming. Between 3600 and 2800 BCE, early farmers in Central Europe constructed monumental structures and burial chambers from large stones, known as megalithic sites.
“Where they have survived, these structures continue to be impressive to this day. At the same time, this fascinating era still presents us with many mysteries.
How did megalithic architecture spread across Europe? Was a specific population group responsible for this, and did they spread the idea? Or was the concept of megaliths passed on from group to group? How far did the contacts between the individual communities extend? And who was actually buried in these tombs?”, questions Professor Johannes Müller, prehistoric archaeologist at the Institute for Prehistory and Early History of Kiel University (CAU) and co-author of the study.
DNA From Neolithic Individuals
To get closer to answering these questions, the participating scientists analysed aDNA from the bones of a total of 203 Neolithic individuals. The remains come mainly from megalithic tombs of the so-called Wartberg culture in what is now Lower Saxony, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia.
The analyses show that people buried in the same megalithic tomb were not necessarily biologically related.
Map of Neolithic megalithic tombs in Northern Central Europe. Using DNA analysis, researchers identified various relationships among six gravesite complexes of the Wartberg culture in present-day Lower Saxony, Hesse, and North Rhine-Westphalia. One particularly spectacular finding: at the Sorsum site, the son of a man was buried whose bones were found at the Niedertiefenbach site. The two sites are located about 250 kilometers apart. Credit: Ralf Opitz, Inst. f. UFG/Uni Kiel
“Social ties also appear to have played a role in determining who was buried together in a tomb. This is surprising. Studies of megalithic tombs in Ireland or Sweden suggest communal burials of biological nuclear families,” explains co-author Professor Almut Nebel from the IKMB, “In the sites we investigated, we are evidently dealing with graves of patchwork communities.”
Several Hundred Kilometers In A Single Generation
These Neolithic patchwork communities were significantly more mobile than previously thought. At Sorsum, the northernmost megalithic tomb studied, a young man was buried whose biological father had been interred at Niedertiefenbach, 250 kilometers to the southwest.
“We do not know whether the son lived in Sorsum or was staying there as a traveler. However, we now know that people covered distances of several hundred kilometers within a single generation – long before domesticated horses were used as a means of transport in Central Europe,” says Ben Krause-Kyora.
Almut Nebel, Ben Krause-Kyora, Nicolas Antonio da Silva and Johannes Müller are excited about the new insights into the lives of Neolithic people provided by the ancient DNA analyses. In total, 16 researchers were involved in the study. Credit: Jan Steffen, Cluster ROOTS/Uni Kiel
In addition to the father-son pair, the study indicates that close relatives often lived and died far from each other. Girls and women were especially mobile, contrary to previous studies that suggested much smaller movement ranges during the Neolithic period.
Diversity In The Neolithic Period
Furthermore, the team compared the DNA from the examined graves with previously published analyses from Western Europe. This revealed that the Wartberg communities did not belong to the same populations as other groups in Western Europe who built megalithic tombs.
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“This in turn suggests that the custom of erecting monuments from large stones was culturally disseminated – not through direct migration,” explains Dr Nicolas da Silva from the IKMB, the study’s lead author.
“The more data we have from the Neolithic period, the more diverse the picture of early farming communities in Europe becomes. Following these new investigations, at the very latest, we must also rethink our understanding of family structures and mobility patterns in prehistory,” says ROOTS co-speaker Johannes Müller, summarising the findings.
The study was published in the journal Science
Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer
