New insights on cultural dualism and population structure in the Middle Neolithic Funnel Beaker culture on the island of Gotland, by Fraser et al., in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (2017).
Abstract (emphasis mine):
In recent years it has been shown that the Neolithization of Europe was partly driven by migration of farming groups admixing with local hunter-gatherer groups as they dispersed across the continent. However, little research has been done on the cultural duality of contemporaneous foragers and farming populations in the same region. Here we investigate the demographic history of the Funnel Beaker culture [Trichterbecherkultur or TRB, c. 4000–2800 cal BCE], and the sub-Neolithic Pitted Ware culture complex [PWC, c. 3300–2300 cal BCE] during the Nordic Middle Neolithic period on the island of Gotland, Sweden. We use a multidisciplinary approach to investigate individuals buried in the Ansarve dolmen, the only confirmed TRB burial on the island. We present new radiocarbon dating, isotopic analyses for diet and mobility, and mitochondrial DNA haplogroup data to infer maternal inheritance. We also present a new Sr-baseline of 0.71208 ± 0.0016 for the local isotope variation. We compare and discuss our findings together with that of contemporaneous populations in Sweden and the North European mainland.
The radiocarbon dating and Strontium isotopic ratios show that the dolmen was used between c. 3300–2700 cal BCE by a population which displayed local Sr-signals. Mitochondrial data show that the individuals buried in the Ansarve dolmen had maternal genetic affinity to that of other Early and Middle Neolithic farming cultures in Europe, distinct from that of the contemporaneous PWC on the island. Furthermore, they exhibited a strict terrestrial and/or slightly varied diet in contrast to the strict marine diet of the PWC. The findings indicate that two different contemporary groups coexisted on the same island for several hundred years with separate cultural identity, lifestyles, as well as dietary patterns.
If you are interested in knowing more details about settlements on the island, I recommend you to read Early Holocene human population events on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea (9200-3800 cal. BP), by Jan Apel, downloadable here.
It is important to remember cases like this one when speaking about the steppe as representing a single culture and people, speaking the same language, no matter the period in question and the archaeological cultures involved…
Related:
Featured image: Diachronic map of Early Neolithic migrations ca. 5000-4000 BC.
Related:
- Ancient DNA samples from Mesolithic Scandinavia show east-west genetic gradient
- The renewed ‘Kurgan model’ of Kristian Kristiansen and the Danish school: “The Indo-European Corded Ware Theory”
- Correlation does not mean causation: the damage of the ‘Yamnaya ancestral component’, and the ‘Future America’ hypothesis
- Germanic–Balto-Slavic and Satem (‘Indo-Slavonic’) dialect revisionism by amateur geneticists, or why R1a lineages *must* have spoken Proto-Indo-European
