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Kinship and social organization in Copper Age Europe. A cross-disciplinary analysis of archaeology, DNA, isotopes, and anthropology from two Bell Beaker cemeteries

Kinship and social organization in Copper Age Europe. A cross-disciplinary analysis of archaeology, DNA, isotopes, and anthropology from two Bell Beaker cemeteries
Kinship and social organization in Copper Age Europe. A cross-disciplinary analysis of archaeology, DNA, isotopes, and anthropology from two Bell Beaker cemeteries

We present a high-resolution cross-disciplinary analysis of kinship structure and social institutions in two Late Copper Age Bell Beaker culture cemeteries of South Germany containing 24 and 18 burials, of which 34 provided genetic information. By combining archaeological, anthropological, genetic and isotopic evidence we are able to document the internal kinship and residency structure of the cemeteries and the socially organizing principles of these local communities. The buried individuals represent four to six generations of two family groups, one nuclear family at the Alburg cemetery, and one seemingly more extended at Irlbach. While likely monogamous, they practiced exogamy, as six out of eight non-locals are women. Maternal genetic diversity is high with 23 different mitochondrial haplotypes from 34 individuals, whereas all males belong to one single Y-chromosome haplogroup without any detectable contribution from Y-chromosomes typical of the farmers who had been the sole inhabitants of the region hundreds of years before. This provides evidence for the society being patrilocal, perhaps as a way of protecting property among the male line, while in-marriage from many different places secured social and political networks and prevented inbreeding. We also find evidence that the communities practiced selection for which of their children (aged 0–14 years) received a proper burial, as buried juveniles were in all but one case boys, suggesting the priority of young males in the cemeteries. This is plausibly linked to the exchange of foster children as part of an expansionist kinship system which is well attested from later Indo-European-speaking cultural groups.

1932-6203
Sjögren, Karl Göran
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Olalde, Iñigo
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Carver, Sophie
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Allentoft, Morten E.
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Knowles, Tim
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Kroonen, Guus
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Pike, Alistair W.G.
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Schröter, Peter
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Brown, Keri A.
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Brown, Kate Robson
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Harrison, Richard J.
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Bertemes, Francois
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Reich, David
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Kristiansen, Kristian
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Heyd, Volker
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Sjögren, Karl Göran
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Olalde, Iñigo
3150ad63-4b5a-489f-a971-4db5e3accf2e
Carver, Sophie
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Allentoft, Morten E.
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Knowles, Tim
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Kroonen, Guus
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Pike, Alistair W.G.
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Schröter, Peter
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Brown, Keri A.
927149fe-060e-4029-9208-ed640c1ccfd1
Brown, Kate Robson
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Harrison, Richard J.
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Bertemes, Francois
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Reich, David
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Kristiansen, Kristian
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Heyd, Volker
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Sjögren, Karl Göran, Olalde, Iñigo, Carver, Sophie, Allentoft, Morten E., Knowles, Tim, Kroonen, Guus, Pike, Alistair W.G., Schröter, Peter, Brown, Keri A., Brown, Kate Robson, Harrison, Richard J., Bertemes, Francois, Reich, David, Kristiansen, Kristian and Heyd, Volker (2020) Kinship and social organization in Copper Age Europe. A cross-disciplinary analysis of archaeology, DNA, isotopes, and anthropology from two Bell Beaker cemeteries. PLoS ONE, 15 (11 November), [e0241278]. (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0241278).

Record type: Article

Abstract

We present a high-resolution cross-disciplinary analysis of kinship structure and social institutions in two Late Copper Age Bell Beaker culture cemeteries of South Germany containing 24 and 18 burials, of which 34 provided genetic information. By combining archaeological, anthropological, genetic and isotopic evidence we are able to document the internal kinship and residency structure of the cemeteries and the socially organizing principles of these local communities. The buried individuals represent four to six generations of two family groups, one nuclear family at the Alburg cemetery, and one seemingly more extended at Irlbach. While likely monogamous, they practiced exogamy, as six out of eight non-locals are women. Maternal genetic diversity is high with 23 different mitochondrial haplotypes from 34 individuals, whereas all males belong to one single Y-chromosome haplogroup without any detectable contribution from Y-chromosomes typical of the farmers who had been the sole inhabitants of the region hundreds of years before. This provides evidence for the society being patrilocal, perhaps as a way of protecting property among the male line, while in-marriage from many different places secured social and political networks and prevented inbreeding. We also find evidence that the communities practiced selection for which of their children (aged 0–14 years) received a proper burial, as buried juveniles were in all but one case boys, suggesting the priority of young males in the cemeteries. This is plausibly linked to the exchange of foster children as part of an expansionist kinship system which is well attested from later Indo-European-speaking cultural groups.

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Accepted/In Press date: 12 October 2020
Published date: 16 November 2020
Additional Information: Funding Information: FB, RH, KR-B, VH: Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung project RR8322. KK, K-G S: Swedish Riksbanken grant M16-0455:1. VHeyd: ERC Advanced grant 788616. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We want to thank Eske Willerslev, Geogenetics, Copenhagen, for his support of this research. David Reich wishes to mention that he is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. We are grateful to Tian Chen Zeng, Dept. of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, for his work on better visualizing Fig 5. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Sjögren et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

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Local EPrints ID: 449026
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/449026
ISSN: 1932-6203
PURE UUID: cc2587c1-b51d-4a15-8f1b-072670697b90
ORCID for Alistair W.G. Pike: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5610-8948

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Date deposited: 13 May 2021 16:39
Last modified: 12 Jul 2024 01:50

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Contributors

Author: Karl Göran Sjögren
Author: Iñigo Olalde
Author: Sophie Carver
Author: Morten E. Allentoft
Author: Tim Knowles
Author: Guus Kroonen
Author: Peter Schröter
Author: Keri A. Brown
Author: Kate Robson Brown
Author: Richard J. Harrison
Author: Francois Bertemes
Author: David Reich
Author: Kristian Kristiansen
Author: Volker Heyd

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