Stone Age Iberians Send Culture But Not Genes Across Europe

Source:  Nature

Ancient-genome study finds Bronze Age ‘Beaker culture’

invaded Britain.  (Click to read Nature article)




Copper Age Iberians 'exported' their culture 
-- but not their genes -- all over Europe

"The Neolithic people who built Stonehenge almost disappear
and are replaced by the populations
from the Beaker culture from the Netherlands and Germany."

Prehistoric Iberians 'exported' their culture throughout Europe, reaching Great Britain, Sicily, Poland and all over central Europe in general. However, they did not export their genes. The Beaker culture, which probably originated in Iberia, left remains in those parts of the continent. However, that diffusion was not due to large migrations of populations that took this culture with them. 

These are the conclusions of an international study in which the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) was involved. Its findings, published in the journal Nature, indicate no evidence of any genetic outflow from Iberia to those areas has been discovered. "Therefore, the diffusion of the Beaker culture from Iberia is the first example of a culture being transmitted as an idea, basically due to a question of social prestige (since it was associated with the virtues of being virile and of being warriors), which is why it is adopted by other populations," indicates researcher Carles Lalueza-Fox, from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, a mixed research centre run by CSIC and the Pompeu Fabra University, in Barcelona, Spain.

Image result for Bell Beaker pottery
Atlantipedia
Between 4,700 and 4,400 years ago, a new type of bell-shaped beaker pottery (left) was introduced throughout western and central Europe. For more than a century, archaeologists have been trying to determine whether the spread of this beaker pottery -- and the (Beaker) culture associated with it -- represented a large-scale migration or whether it was due simply to the exchange of new ideas.

Now, this new study, which includes DNA data from 400 prehistoric skeletons collected from sites across Europe, resolves the debate of whether the spread was due to migrations or ideas, indicating that both arguments are correct. The findings show that the culture which produced these bell-shaped beakers extended from Iberia to central Europe without a significant movement of populations, although the Beaker culture would spread to other places through migrations at a later date.

The study, whose first author is the Spanish researcher Íñigo Olalde, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, shows that once the (Bell) Beaker culture reaches the centre of Europe (around Germany and its surrounding area), it expands backwards to other places, notably to the British Isles. Yet, in this case, it does represent a migration, replacing around 90% of the population with it.

"That is to say, the Neolithic people who built Stonehenge (and who had a greater genetic similarity with Neolithic Iberians than with those from Central Europe) almost disappear and are replaced by the populations from the Beaker culture from the Netherlands and Germany. This replacement is almost absolute in terms of the Y chromosome, which is transmitted by the paternal line, indicating an extreme reproductive bias, and therefore a previously unheard of social dominance. The backward flow also reaches other places such as Italy (at least in the north) and Iberia. I believe it is possible that this is also associated with the expansion of the Celtic or Proto-Celtic languages," Mr. Lalueza-Fox points out.

Coordinated by researcher David Reich from Harvard University, the study was developed by an international team of 144 archaeologists and geneticists from institutions in Europe and the United States.

Full report:  The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe.

Bell-Beaker culture
Beaker folk, Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age people living about 4,500 years ago in the temperate zones of Europe; they received their name from their distinctive bell-shaped beakers, decorated in horizontal zones by finely toothed stamps. (Their culture is often called the Bell-Beaker culture.) The graves of the Beaker folk were usually modest single units, though in much of western Europe they often took the form of megalithic tombs. A warlike stock, they were primarily bowmen but were also armed with a flat, tanged dagger or spearhead of copper, and a curved, rectangular wrist guard. Their extensive search for copper (and gold), in fact, greatly accelerated the spread of bronze metallurgy in Europe. Probably originally from Spain, the Beaker folk soon spread into central and western Europe in their search for metals. In central Europe they came into contact with the Battle-Ax (or Single-Grave) culture, which was also characterized by beaker-shaped pottery (though different in detail) and by the use of horses and a shaft-hole battle-ax. The two cultures gradually intermixed and later spread from central Europe to eastern England.

 Story Source:  Materials provided by Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Iñigo Olalde, Selina Brace, Morten E. Allentoft, Ian Armit, Kristian Kristiansen, Thomas Booth, Nadin Rohland, Swapan Mallick, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy, Alissa Mittnik, Eveline Altena, Mark Lipson, Iosif Lazaridis, Thomas K. Harper, Nick Patterson, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Yoan Diekmann, Zuzana Faltyskova, Daniel Fernandes, Matthew Ferry, Eadaoin Harney, Peter de Knijff, Megan Michel, Jonas Oppenheimer, Kristin Stewardson, Alistair Barclay, Kurt Werner Alt, Corina Liesau, Patricia Ríos, Concepción Blasco, Jorge Vega Miguel, Roberto Menduiña García, Azucena Avilés Fernández, Eszter Bánffy, Maria Bernabò-Brea, David Billoin, Clive Bonsall, Laura Bonsall, Tim Allen, Lindsey Büster, Sophie Carver, Laura Castells Navarro, Oliver E. Craig, Gordon T. Cook, Barry Cunliffe, Anthony Denaire, Kirsten Egging Dinwiddy, Natasha Dodwell, Michal Ernée, Christopher Evans, Milan Kuchařík, Joan Francès Farré, Chris Fowler, Michiel Gazenbeek, Rafael Garrido Pena, María Haber-Uriarte, Elżbieta Haduch, Gill Hey, Nick Jowett, Timothy Knowles, Ken Massy, Saskia Pfrengle, Philippe Lefranc, Olivier Lemercier, Arnaud Lefebvre, César Heras Martínez, Virginia Galera Olmo, Ana Bastida Ramírez, Joaquín Lomba Maurandi, Tona Majó, Jacqueline I. McKinley, Kathleen McSweeney, Balázs Gusztáv Mende, Alessandra Mod, Gabriella Kulcsár, Viktória Kiss, András Czene, Róbert Patay, Anna Endrődi, Kitti Köhler, Tamás Hajdu, Tamás Szeniczey, János Dani, Zsolt Bernert, Maya Hoole, Olivia Cheronet, Denise Keating, Petr Velemínský, Miroslav Dobeš, Francesca Candilio, Fraser Brown, Raúl Flores Fernández, Ana-Mercedes Herrero-Corral, Sebastiano Tusa, Emiliano Carnieri, Luigi Lentini, Antonella Valenti, Alessandro Zanini, Clive Waddington, Germán Delibes, Elisa Guerra-Doce, Benjamin Neil, Marcus Brittain, Mike Luke, Richard Mortimer, Jocelyne Desideri, Marie Besse, Günter Brücken, Mirosław Furmanek, Agata Hałuszko, Maksym Mackiewicz, Artur Rapiński, Stephany Leach, Ignacio Soriano, Katina T. Lillios, João Luís Cardoso, Michael Parker Pearson, Piotr Włodarczak, T. Douglas Price, Pilar Prieto, Pierre-Jérôme Rey, Roberto Risch, Manuel A. Rojo Guerra, Aurore Schmitt, Joël Serralongue, Ana Maria Silva, Václav Smrčka, Luc Vergnaud, João Zilhão, David Caramelli, Thomas Higham, Mark G. Thomas, Douglas J. Kennett, Harry Fokkens, Volker Heyd, Alison Sheridan, Karl-Göran Sjögren, Philipp W. Stockhammer, Johannes Krause, Ron Pinhasi, Wolfgang Haak, Ian Barnes, Carles Lalueza-Fox, David Reich. The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe. Nature, 2018.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How the lives of Georgian gaolbirds and highwaymen shaped modern Britain

Image
Writing historical fiction requires solid research of available materials and databases.  The key word here is available.   So news of a new publicly accessible database that allows an author to research a very interesting past era is priceless almost beyond words.   I expect some exciting fiction to come out of this announcement. Here's the story, with a link to the source in the attribution. *  *  *  *  * London Lives, a landmark project led by Professor Bob Shoemaker from the University of Sheffield and Professor Tim Hitchcock from the University of Sussex, has uncovered a mass of extraordinary new evidence which reveals how the lives of thousands of 18th-century poor and criminal Londoners helped shape modern Britain. Based on evidence made available in a publicly available database, the study sheds new light on the everyday lives of thieves, prostitutes, vagrants, highwaymen, con-men, paupers and jailbirds, revealing how their daily fight for survival led to t
Read more

An unexpected way to recover from a breakup

Image
Breaking up is truly hard to do. And recovery from a breakup can be even harder. Your friends may counsel you to put the whole thing out of your mind. But new research suggests that repeatedly reflecting on a break-up -- even through participation in a research study -- actually speeds emotional recovery. "Breakups are ubiquitous -- most adults have experienced at least one in their life -- and are typically very distressing," says Grace Larson of Northwestern University. After studying divorce and breakups for years using longitudinal, multi-method designs, Larson and her then-adviser David Sbarra of the University of Arizona wanted to study whether these research techniques on their own were affecting participants. One concern they had was that the studies could be harming participants, Larson says. "At first glance, it might seem like repeatedly reminding participants that they had just broken up -- and asking them to describe the breakup over and over --
Read more

Greek Bronze Age ended 100 years earlier than thought

Image
Source: www.shef.ac.uk The charred remains of Assiros Toumba in Greece. Writing historical fiction set in the Greek Bronze Age?  Or simply enjoy reading this genre'?  Here's a study you may find interesting. C onventional estimates for the collapse of the Aegean civilization may be incorrect by up to a century, according to new radiocarbon analyses. While historical chronologies traditionally place the end of the Greek Bronze Age at around 1025 BCE, this latest research suggests a date 70 to 100 years earlier. www.weather-forecast.com Archaeologists from the University of Birmingham selected 60 samples of animal bones, plant remains and building timbers, excavated at Assiros in northern Greece, to be radiocarbon dated and correlated with 95.4% accuracy using Bayesian statistical methodology at the University of Oxford and the Akademie der Wissenschaften Heidelberg, Germany. Researcher Dr Ken Wardle says, 'These new results tell a story that is totall
Read more

Mood Instability and Your Characters

Image
You're putting together a character who's mood simply bounces all over the place, happy one moment, in a fit of rage the next.  Researchers at King's College London note that this sort of mood instability is part of a number of mental health disorders.  So how do you structure the personality and behavior of a character like this?  Below is the King's College report, along with a brief description from mentalhealth.com, of typical behavior, sometimes in the extreme, of a person who is very emotionally unstable.  This is offered strictly as a guide for crafting character in fiction - and NOT for the amateur diagnosis of the state of someone's mental health.  That is always best left to trained professionals. Another note about emotionally unstable behavior:  as any parent will tell you, this is how adolescents and teen-agers often behave.  It's a normal part of growing up - but it is a matter of degree .  In the extreme, however, this behavior can be diag
Read more

Remember faces but not names? You got it wrong.

Image
Source:   Daily Excelsior So, you think you're good at remembering faces, but terrible with names? New research has revealed we are actually better at remembering names than faces The cringe-worthy experience of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name leads many of us to believe we are terrible with names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. With the Christmas party season fast approaching, there will be plenty of opportunity to re-live the familiar, and excruciatingly-awkward, social situation of not being able to remember an acquaintance's name. This cringe-worthy experience leads many of us to believe we are terrible at remembering names. However, new research has revealed this intuition is misleading; we are actually better at remembering names than faces. The authors of the study, from the University of York, suggest that when we castigate ourselves f
Read more