Genetic analyzes make it possible to reveal migratory phenomena and social customs that had hitherto gone unnoticed in traditional historiography. The populations that lived in Central Europe at the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Bronze Age are thus much more mixed from an ethnic point of view than we thought and have even been renewed several times in just a few centuries. .
A richly endowed Early Bronze Age burial from Bohemia, Czech Republic.
BURIALS. At the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Bronze Age (about 4000 to 1700 BC), Central Europe hosted many different archaeological cultures, such as that of the Corded Ware, or that of 'Únětice, which is distinguished and characterized according to the position of the skeletons and the shape of the pottery found in the graves. By focusing on a very specific region, northern Bohemia, which essentially corresponds to the western part of the present-day Czech Republic, a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) is however managed to obtain a more nuanced and dynamic image of these populations, revealing on the local level migrations and social customs that had hitherto gone unnoticed. Their study has just been published in Sciences Advances .
Bohemia, home to different cultures
Thanks to the presence of important waterways such as the Elbe, the Vltava and the Ohře, northern Bohemia is a privileged area, both rich in fertile lowlands and located at the crossroads of trade routes. According to traditional historiography, it would have been populated at the end of the Neolithic period by a succession of cultural groups, which were not only at the origin of important technological innovations (metallurgy, the wheel, the cart, the plow, the fortresses, burial mounds), but also ideological, as evidenced by highly diversified mortuary practices, with significant variations in the position and orientation of the bodies, and the presence of funerary goods in now individual tombs.
But, in reality, these archaeological cultures, which extend over a large part of Europe, do not follow each other strictly, they rather overlap, geographically and temporally. In order to elucidate its origins, researchers at the Max Planck Institute have mainly focused on three genetically and culturally differentiated groups coexisting around -2800 BC:the Corded Ware culture, the Bell Beaker culture and the Únětice, which marks the beginning of the Bronze Age. By sampling 271 human genomes dating from -4900 to -1600 years ago, they arrive at conclusions that readjust the vision of this period at the local level, essentially envisaged on a pan-European level. Until now, it was indeed considered that there were only major migrations at the beginning and end of the Neolithic period, but the Leipzig researchers have discovered that large genetic changes also occurred on short periods, probably resulting from migrations.
BURIALS. At the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Bronze Age (about 4000 to 1700 BC), Central Europe hosted many different archaeological cultures, such as that of the Corded Ware, or that of 'Únětice, which is distinguished and characterized according to the position of the skeletons and the shape of the pottery found in the graves. By focusing on a very specific region, northern Bohemia, which essentially corresponds to the western part of the present-day Czech Republic, a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) is however managed to obtain a more nuanced and dynamic image of these populations, revealing on the local level migrations and social customs that had hitherto gone unnoticed. Their study has just been published in Sciences Advances .
Bohemia, home to different cultures
Thanks to the presence of important waterways such as the Elbe, the Vltava and the Ohře, northern Bohemia is a privileged area, both rich in fertile lowlands and located at the crossroads of trade routes. According to traditional historiography, it would have been populated at the end of the Neolithic period by a succession of cultural groups, which were not only at the origin of important technological innovations (metallurgy, the wheel, the cart, the plow, the fortresses, burial mounds), but also ideological, as evidenced by highly diversified mortuary practices, with significant variations in the position and orientation of the bodies, and the presence of funerary goods in now individual tombs.
But, in reality, these archaeological cultures, which extend over a large part of Europe, do not follow each other strictly, they rather overlap, geographically and temporally. In order to elucidate its origins, researchers at the Max Planck Institute have mainly focused on three genetically and culturally differentiated groups coexisting around -2800 BC:the Corded Ware culture, the Bell Beaker culture and the Únětice, which marks the beginning of the Bronze Age. By sampling 271 human genomes dating from -4900 to -1600 years ago, they arrive at conclusions that readjust the vision of this period at the local level, essentially envisaged on a pan-European level. Until now, it was indeed considered that there were only major migrations at the beginning and end of the Neolithic period, but the Leipzig researchers have discovered that large genetic changes also occurred on short periods, probably resulting from migrations.
Migrations and ethnic mixtures
The emergence, at the end of the Neolithic period, of the Corded Ware culture (around 2900/2800 – 2400 BC) and of the Bell Beaker culture (around 2500 – 2200 BC) corresponds to an important turning point, as it is the second major population turnover that has occurred in the past 10,000 years. The first renewal, which began around 7000 BC, corresponds to the expansion of Neolithic farming communities from Anatolia.
However, the opinions of archaeologists diverge as to the exact origin of these two new cultures – some leaning towards a migratory phenomenon, the others towards a purely autochthonous settlement –, and as to their mode of subsistence:was it sedentary farmers or nomadic pastoralists? However, it has been established that the individuals of the Corded Ware culture were mostly genetically distinct from the peoples who preceded them, and that 75% of their ancestry would be of steppe origin:they would thus descend from the Yamnayas, a people who came from the steppe. Pontic-Caspian (the western and European part of the Eurasian steppe), which spread across a large part of Europe during the third millennium BC.
The genetic analyzes carried out by the Leipzig researchers provide the first data relating to individuals without steppe ancestry, revealing a process of assimilation that would have taken place through women. However, the latter would not come from the region, but from a more eastern area, perhaps from Poland. This means that the society of the early Corded Ware period in Bohemia included people who probably came from very diverse cultures, and spoke different mother tongues.
Selective breeding
The researchers then find that representatives of the Corded Ware culture have changed genetically over time. They detected a sharp decrease in lineage diversity, with a shift from five different lineages to almost exclusively one, meaning that most men would have had one and the same ancestor. One of the study's authors, Luka Papac, analyzes this finding as follows:"This pattern may reflect the emergence of a new social structure or a new regulation of mating, in which only a subset of males sired the majority of the offspring. "
This process is reproduced even more strictly in the Bell Beaker culture:all the male individuals analyzed by the researchers not only belong to the same lineage, but this one had just arrived in the region, replacing all the lineages of previous societies. .
In a short time, therefore, the groups of the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures underwent great modifications, involving strong reductions and complete replacements of male lineage diversity; this phenomenon was accompanied in the Bell Beaker culture by an increase in Neolithic-type ancestry.
Migration from the Baltic countries
The following culture, that of Únětice (around 2300 – 1600 BC), which took place at the beginning of the Bronze Age, is traditionally considered to be a continuation of the Bell Beaker culture, implying that its representatives would be the descendants of the previous ones. However, the genetic data obtained by researchers at the Max Planck Institute indicate another genetic renewal. Indeed, 80% of the first lineages of the Únětice culture are new to the region, and would come from north-eastern Europe, most certainly from the Baltic countries; the presence of a genetic aberration in particular provides direct evidence of a migration of Latvian origin. It is true that Bohemia has in the meantime become an important trading hub, and for example plays a key role in the emerging Baltic amber trade. The trade routes established at the time would therefore also have served as migratory routes towards Central Europe, which saw a new social organization emerge from the renewal of more than 40% of its population.
The analyzes of the genome of the numerous skeletons found on the archaeological sites of Bohemia surprised the researchers who did not expect to see appearing in such an obvious way numerous and frequent changes in the cultural, biological and social composition of these societies. Focusing on a specific region has therefore made it possible to refine the perspective and highlight the complex upheavals that will then have to be explained:what are the social, political, economic or ideological reasons at the origin of these migrations and those transformations that shaped the population of central Europe at the end of the Neolithic period?