Lastly, we document direct genomic evidence for Neolithic female exogamy in a woman buried in a different megalithic tomb than her brothers. Taken together, our findings provide a detailed reconstruction of plague spread within a large patrilineal kinship group and identify multiple plague infections in a population dated to the beginning of the Neolithic decline.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07651-2
In the period between 5,300 and 4,900 calibrated years before present (cal. bp), populations across large parts of Europe underwent a period of demographic decline1,2. However, the cause of this so-called Neolithic decline is still debated. Some argue for an agricultural crisis resulting in the decline3, others for the spread of an early form of plague4. Here we use population-scale ancient genomics to infer ancestry, social structure and pathogen infection in 108 Scandinavian Neolithic individuals from eight megalithic graves and a stone cist. We find that the Neolithic plague was widespread, detected in at least 17% of the sampled population and across large geographical distances. We demonstrate that the disease spread within the Neolithic community in three distinct infection events within a period of around 120 years.
The pedigree is strongly patrilineal in nature and, except for a single woman (FRA023), all female individuals with offspring appear to come from outside the lineage. In fact, in one case we find direct evidence of female exogamy: we identified three siblings—two brothers and their sister (HJE003, HJE012 and FRA028, respectively)—in which the brothers were buried at the site Hjelmars Rör (highlighted in dark mauve in Fig. 3, dashed box) whereas their sister was buried at Frälsegården, 8 km distant. At Frälsegården this female gave rise to a large family with seven grandchildren, indicating that she moved away from her family during her lifetime to start her own family in a new settlement.
Social and genetic diversity in first farmers of
central Europe
We find evidence for patrilocality, with more structure across sites in the male than in the female
lines and a higher rate of within-site relatives for males. At Asparn-Schletz we
find almost no relatives, showing that the massacred individuals were from a
large population, not a small community.
) the ALPC settlement site
of Polgár-Ferenci-hát (5500–5100 bce) in eastern Hungary, in which
individuals were buried between houses rather than in a cemetery;
(2) the cemetery of Nitra Horné Krškany, western Slovakia, dated to
the LBK expansion phase, 5200–5000 bce; and (3) the enclosed settle-
ment and massacre LBK site of Asparn-Schletz in Lower Austria, dated
to the final phase of the LBK at around 5000 bce
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