Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

20 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Shifting networks and mixing metals: Changing metal trade routes to Scandinavia correlate with Neolithic and Bronze Age transformations.

ABSTRACT: Based on 550 metal analyses, this study sheds decisive light on how the Nordic Bronze Age was founded on metal imports from shifting ore sources associated with altered trade routes. On-and-off presence of copper characterised the Neolithic. At 2100-2000 BC, a continuous rise in the flow of metals to southern Scandinavia begins. First to arrive via the central German Únětician hubs was high-impurity metal from the Austrian Inn Valley and Slovakia; this was complemented by high-tin British metal, enabling early local production of tin bronzes. Increased metal use locally fuelled the leadership competitions visible in the metal-led material culture. The Únětice downfall c.1600 BC resulted for a short period in a raw materials shortage, visible in the reuse of existing stocks, but stimulated direct Nordic access to the Carpathian basin. This new access expedited innovations in metalwork with reliance on chalcopyrite from Slovakia, as well as opening new sources in the eastern Alps, along an eastern route that also conveyed Baltic amber as far as the Aegean. British metal plays a central role during this period. Finally, from c.1500 BC, when British copper imports ceased, the predominance of novel northern Italian copper coincides with the full establishment of the NBA and highlights a western route, connecting the NBA with the southern German Tumulus culture and the first transalpine amber traffic.

SUBMITTER: Norgaard HW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8208583 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Similar Datasets

Mixing instabilities during shearing of metals.

Project description:Severe plastic deformation of solids is relevant to many materials processing techniques as well as tribological events such as wear. It results in microstructural refinement, redistribution of phases, and ultimately even mixing. However, mostly due to inability to experimentally capture the dynamics of deformation, the underlying physical mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we introduce a strategy that reveals details of morphological evolution upon shearing up to ultrahigh strains. Our experiments on metallic multilayers find that mechanically stronger layers either fold in a quasi-regular manner and subsequently evolve into periodic vortices, or delaminate into finer layers before mixing takes place. Numerical simulations performed by treating the phases as nonlinear viscous fluids reproduce the experimental findings and reveal the origin for emergence of a wealth of morphologies in deforming solids. They show that the same instability that causes kilometer-thick rock layers to fold on geological timescales is acting here at micrometer level.

| S-EPMC5694766 | biostudies-literature

Reconstructing genetic histories and social organisation in Neolithic and Bronze Age Croatia.

Project description:Ancient DNA studies have revealed how human migrations from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age transformed the social and genetic structure of European societies. Present-day Croatia lies at the heart of ancient migration routes through Europe, yet our knowledge about social and genetic processes here remains sparse. To shed light on these questions, we report new whole-genome data for 28 individuals dated to between ~ 4700 BCE-400 CE from two sites in present-day eastern Croatia. In the Middle Neolithic we evidence first cousin mating practices and strong genetic continuity from the Early Neolithic. In the Middle Bronze Age community that we studied, we find multiple closely related males suggesting a patrilocal social organisation. We also find in that community an unexpected genetic ancestry profile distinct from individuals found at contemporaneous sites in the region, due to the addition of hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. These findings support archaeological evidence for contacts with communities further north in the Carpathian Basin. Finally, an individual dated to Roman times exhibits an ancestry profile that is broadly present in the region today, adding an important data point to the substantial shift in ancestry that occurred in the region between the Bronze Age and today.

| S-EPMC8373892 | biostudies-literature

Ancient X chromosomes reveal contrasting sex bias in Neolithic and Bronze Age Eurasian migrations.

Project description:Dramatic events in human prehistory, such as the spread of agriculture to Europe from Anatolia and the late Neolithic/Bronze Age migration from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, can be investigated using patterns of genetic variation among the people who lived in those times. In particular, studies of differing female and male demographic histories on the basis of ancient genomes can provide information about complexities of social structures and cultural interactions in prehistoric populations. We use a mechanistic admixture model to compare the sex-specifically-inherited X chromosome with the autosomes in 20 early Neolithic and 16 late Neolithic/Bronze Age human remains. Contrary to previous hypotheses suggested by the patrilocality of many agricultural populations, we find no evidence of sex-biased admixture during the migration that spread farming across Europe during the early Neolithic. For later migrations from the Pontic Steppe during the late Neolithic/Bronze Age, however, we estimate a dramatic male bias, with approximately five to 14 migrating males for every migrating female. We find evidence of ongoing, primarily male, migration from the steppe to central Europe over a period of multiple generations, with a level of sex bias that excludes a pulse migration during a single generation. The contrasting patterns of sex-specific migration during these two migrations suggest a view of differing cultural histories in which the Neolithic transition was driven by mass migration of both males and females in roughly equal numbers, perhaps whole families, whereas the later Bronze Age migration and cultural shift were instead driven by male migration, potentially connected to new technology and conquest.

| S-EPMC5347611 | biostudies-literature

Neolithic and Bronze Age migration to Ireland and establishment of the insular Atlantic genome.

Project description:The Neolithic and Bronze Age transitions were profound cultural shifts catalyzed in parts of Europe by migrations, first of early farmers from the Near East and then Bronze Age herders from the Pontic Steppe. However, a decades-long, unresolved controversy is whether population change or cultural adoption occurred at the Atlantic edge, within the British Isles. We address this issue by using the first whole genome data from prehistoric Irish individuals. A Neolithic woman (3343-3020 cal BC) from a megalithic burial (10.3× coverage) possessed a genome of predominantly Near Eastern origin. She had some hunter-gatherer ancestry but belonged to a population of large effective size, suggesting a substantial influx of early farmers to the island. Three Bronze Age individuals from Rathlin Island (2026-1534 cal BC), including one high coverage (10.5×) genome, showed substantial Steppe genetic heritage indicating that the European population upheavals of the third millennium manifested all of the way from southern Siberia to the western ocean. This turnover invites the possibility of accompanying introduction of Indo-European, perhaps early Celtic, language. Irish Bronze Age haplotypic similarity is strongest within modern Irish, Scottish, and Welsh populations, and several important genetic variants that today show maximal or very high frequencies in Ireland appear at this horizon. These include those coding for lactase persistence, blue eye color, Y chromosome R1b haplotypes, and the hemochromatosis C282Y allele; to our knowledge, the first detection of a known Mendelian disease variant in prehistory. These findings together suggest the establishment of central attributes of the Irish genome 4,000 y ago.

| S-EPMC4720318 | biostudies-literature

Geographic differentiation of domesticated einkorn wheat and possible Neolithic migration routes.

Project description:To analyse the spread of domesticated einkorn into Europe, 136 landraces, 9 wild einkorns and 3 Triticum urartu were fingerprinted by the diversity array technology sequence (DArT-seq) marker technology. The obtained 3455 single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers confirmed earlier results about the separation of wild and domesticated einkorn from T. urartu and about the pinpointing of the domesticated forms to the Karacadağ Mountains (Turkey). Further analyses identified two major domesticated landrace einkorn groups, one relating to the Prealpine region and the other to the Maghreb/Iberian region. The previously published four geographical provenance groups were mostly identified in our results. The earlier reported unique position of the Maghreb/Iberia einkorns cannot be confirmed, as the three landrace clusters we identified with STRUCTURE also occur in the remaining einkorn, although at different frequencies. The results are discussed with respect to the spreading of domesticated einkorn into Western Europe and two possible Neolithic migration routes are indicated.

| S-EPMC4981680 | biostudies-literature

Population genomics of Mesolithic Scandinavia: Investigating early postglacial migration routes and high-latitude adaptation.

Project description:Scandinavia was one of the last geographic areas in Europe to become habitable for humans after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). However, the routes and genetic composition of these postglacial migrants remain unclear. We sequenced the genomes, up to 57× coverage, of seven hunter-gatherers excavated across Scandinavia and dated from 9,500-6,000 years before present (BP). Surprisingly, among the Scandinavian Mesolithic individuals, the genetic data display an east-west genetic gradient that opposes the pattern seen in other parts of Mesolithic Europe. Our results suggest two different early postglacial migrations into Scandinavia: initially from the south, and later, from the northeast. The latter followed the ice-free Norwegian north Atlantic coast, along which novel and advanced pressure-blade stone-tool techniques may have spread. These two groups met and mixed in Scandinavia, creating a genetically diverse population, which shows patterns of genetic adaptation to high latitude environments. These potential adaptations include high frequencies of low pigmentation variants and a gene region associated with physical performance, which shows strong continuity into modern-day northern Europeans.

| S-EPMC5760011 | biostudies-literature

Estimating the relative importance of demic and cultural diffusion in the spread of the Neolithic in Scandinavia.

Project description:Using a database of early farming sites in Scandinavia, we estimate that the spread rate of the Neolithic was in the range 0.44-0.66 km yr-1 This is substantially slower (by about 50%) than the rate in continental Europe. We interpret this result in the framework of a new mathematical model that includes horizontal cultural transmission (acculturation), vertical cultural transmission (interbreeding) and demic diffusion (reproduction and dispersal of farmers). To parametrize the model, we estimate reproduction rates of early farmers using archaeological data (sum-calibrated probabilities for the dates of early Neolithic Scandinavian sites) and use them in a wave-of-advance model for the first time. Comparing the model with the archaeological data, we find that the percentage of the spread rate due to cultural diffusion is below 50% (except for very extreme parameter values, and even for them it is below 54%). This strongly suggests that the spread of the Neolithic in Scandinavia was driven mainly by demic diffusion. This conclusion, obtained from archaeological data, agrees qualitatively with the implications of ancient genetic data, but the latter are yet too few in Scandinavia to produce any quantitative percentage for the spread rate due to cultural diffusion. We also find that, on average, fewer than eight hunter-gatherers were incorporated in the Neolithic communities by each group of 10 pioneering farmers, via horizontal and/or vertical cultural transmission.

| S-EPMC6283996 | biostudies-literature

Trade routes and plague transmission in pre-industrial Europe.

Project description:Numerous historical works have mentioned that trade routes were to blame for the spread of plague in European history, yet this relationship has never been tested by quantitative evidence. Here, we resolve the hypothetical role of trade routes through statistical analysis on the geo-referenced major trade routes in the early modern period and the 6,656 geo-referenced plague outbreak records in AD1347-1760. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) estimation results show that major trade routes played a dominant role in spreading plague in pre-industrial Europe. Furthermore, the negative correlation between plague outbreaks and their distance from major trade ports indicates the absence of a permanent plague focus in the inland areas of Europe. Major trade routes decided the major plague outbreak hotspots, while navigable rivers determined the geographic pattern of sporadic plague cases. A case study in Germany indicates that plague penetrated further into Europe through the local trade route network. Based on our findings, we propose the mechanism of plague transmission in historical Europe, which is imperative in demonstrating how pandemics were spread in recent human history.

| S-EPMC5636801 | biostudies-literature

Genetic evidence for an origin of the Armenians from Bronze Age mixing of multiple populations.

Project description:The Armenians are a culturally isolated population who historically inhabited a region in the Near East bounded by the Mediterranean and Black seas and the Caucasus, but remain under-represented in genetic studies and have a complex history including a major geographic displacement during World War I. Here, we analyse genome-wide variation in 173 Armenians and compare them with 78 other worldwide populations. We find that Armenians form a distinctive cluster linking the Near East, Europe, and the Caucasus. We show that Armenian diversity can be explained by several mixtures of Eurasian populations that occurred between ~3000 and ~2000 bce, a period characterized by major population migrations after the domestication of the horse, appearance of chariots, and the rise of advanced civilizations in the Near East. However, genetic signals of population mixture cease after ~1200 bce when Bronze Age civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean world suddenly and violently collapsed. Armenians have since remained isolated and genetic structure within the population developed ~500 years ago when Armenia was divided between the Ottomans and the Safavid Empire in Iran. Finally, we show that Armenians have higher genetic affinity to Neolithic Europeans than other present-day Near Easterners, and that 29% of Armenian ancestry may originate from an ancestral population that is best represented by Neolithic Europeans.

| S-EPMC4820045 | biostudies-literature

The maternal genetic make-up of the Iberian Peninsula between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age.

Project description:Agriculture first reached the Iberian Peninsula around 5700 BCE. However, little is known about the genetic structure and changes of prehistoric populations in different geographic areas of Iberia. In our study, we focus on the maternal genetic makeup of the Neolithic (~ 5500-3000 BCE), Chalcolithic (~ 3000-2200 BCE) and Early Bronze Age (~ 2200-1500 BCE). We report ancient mitochondrial DNA results of 213 individuals (151 HVS-I sequences) from the northeast, central, southeast and southwest regions and thus on the largest archaeogenetic dataset from the Peninsula to date. Similar to other parts of Europe, we observe a discontinuity between hunter-gatherers and the first farmers of the Neolithic. During the subsequent periods, we detect regional continuity of Early Neolithic lineages across Iberia, however the genetic contribution of hunter-gatherers is generally higher than in other parts of Europe and varies regionally. In contrast to ancient DNA findings from Central Europe, we do not observe a major turnover in the mtDNA record of the Iberian Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, suggesting that the population history of the Iberian Peninsula is distinct in character.

| S-EPMC5688114 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

Tweets

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data