Search results for "Kinship"
showing 10 items of 43 documents
Earliest evidence of Neolithic collective burials from Eastern Iberia: Radiocarbon dating at the archaeolgoical site of Les Llometes (Alicante, Spain)
2016
AbstractIn the Valencia region of Spain, the dominant use of natural caves for collective burials during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods has been documented. Collective burials are central to the hypothesis about social relationships in Copper Age societies from Iberia, and key to interpreting kinship-based societies. Les Llometes (Alcoi, Alicante) is one of the biggest collective burial sites existing in eastern Iberia. This article presents the direct14C dates on 25 skeletal remains at the site. The results indicate that the site was used as a burial place from the end of the 5th millennium cal BC until the end of the 4th millennium cal BC, and is a first milestone for future …
Spatio-temporal dynamics of density-dependent dispersal during a population colonisation
2019
Predicting population colonisations requires understanding how spatio‐temporal changes in density affect dispersal. Density can inform on fitness prospects, acting as a cue for either habitat quality, or competition over resources. However, when escaping competition, high local density should only increase emigration if lower‐density patches are available elsewhere. Few empirical studies on dispersal have considered the effects of density at the local and landscape scale simultaneously. To explore this, we analyze 5 years of individual‐based data from an experimental introduction of wild guppies Poecilia reticulata. Natal dispersal showed a decrease in local density dependence as density at…
Two-Stage Bayesian Approach for GWAS With Known Genealogy
2019
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) aim to assess relationships between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and diseases. They are one of the most popular problems in genetics, and have some peculiarities given the large number of SNPs compared to the number of subjects in the study. Individuals might not be independent, especially in animal breeding studies or genetic diseases in isolated populations with highly inbred individuals. We propose a family-based GWAS model in a two-stage approach comprising a dimension reduction and a subsequent model selection. The first stage, in which the genetic relatedness between the subjects is taken into account, selects the promising SNPs. The se…
Kinship, acquired and inherited status, and population structure at the Early Bronze Age Mokrin necropolis in northern Serbia
2020
AbstractTwenty-four ancient genomes with an average sequencing coverage of 0.85±0.25 X were produced from the Mokrin necropolis, an Early Bronze Age (2,100-1,800 BC) Maros culture site in Serbia, to provide unambiguous identification of biological sex, population structure, and genetic kinship between individuals. Of the 24 investigated individuals, 15 were involved in kinship relationships of varying degrees, including 3 parent-offspring relationships. All observed parent-offspring pairs were mother and son. In addition to the absence of biological daughters, we observed a number of young women and girls with no biological relatives in our sample. These observations, together with the high…
Tongan-English language contact and kinship terminology
2016
‘[D]o all humans mean the same things by words that can be used successfully to point to the same thing?’ (Leavitt 2015: 51). This study shows that the same words used in different English varieties might not have the same meaning. The typological comparison of standardised English and Tongan kinship terminology reveals that the categorisation is based on different underlying features. While standardised English focuses on the concept of ‘core family’, Tongan merges ‘same-sex siblings’ and emphasises the concept of ‘extended family’. The emerging contact phenomenon in Tongan English is the use of English terminology according to Tongan categorisation, that is, a case of semantic transfer.
Ancient DNA, Strontium isotopes, and osteological analyses shed light on social and kinship organization of the Later Stone Age.
2008
In 2005 four outstanding multiple burials were discovered near Eulau, Germany. The 4,600-year-old graves contained groups of adults and children buried facing each other. Skeletal and artifactual evidence and the simultaneous interment of the individuals suggest the supposed families fell victim to a violent event. In a multidisciplinary approach, archaeological, anthropological, geochemical (radiogenic isotopes), and molecular genetic (ancient DNA) methods were applied to these unique burials. Using autosomal, mitochondrial, and Y-chromosomal markers, we identified genetic kinship among the individuals. A direct child-parent relationship was detected in one burial, providing the oldest mol…
A Community in Life and Death: The Late Neolithic Megalithic Tomb at Alto de Reinoso (Burgos, Spain)
2016
The analysis of the human remains from the megalithic tomb at Alto de Reinoso represents the widest integrative study of a Neolithic collective burial in Spain. Combining archaeology, osteology, molecular genetics and stable isotope analysis (87Sr/86Sr, δ15N, δ13C) it provides a wealth of information on the minimum number of individuals, age, sex, body height, pathologies, mitochondrial DNA profiles, kinship relations, mobility, and diet. The grave was in use for approximately one hundred years around 3700 cal BC, thus dating from the Late Neolithic of the Iberian chronology. At the bottom of the collective tomb, six complete and six partial skeletons lay in anatomically correct positions. …
Social differentiation and land use at an Early Iron Age “princely seat”: bioarchaeological investigations at the Glauberg (Germany)
2014
Excavations at the late Hallstatt/early La Tene (6th–4th century BC) “princely seat” of the Glauberg (Hesse, Germany) revealed exceptionally furnished graves in monumental mounds, simple inhumations in associated ditches and non-normative burials of up to eight individuals in conical storage pits. The study presented here addresses bioarchaeological characteristics of these burials and their implications for social differentiation and the sphere of influence of the “princely seat”. It includes osteological, aDNA, and multi-isotope analyses of 27 human individuals and faunal remains. One of the outstandingly rich graves (tumulus 1/grave 1) contained the skeleton of a young man (the “prince”)…
The Eulau eulogy: Bioarchaeological interpretation of lethal violence in Corded Ware multiple burials from Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
2009
The Corded Ware is one of the major archaeological traditions of Late Neolithic Europe. Its burial customs are characterized by single graves but multiple burials also occur. We present a detailed study of antemortem and perimortem trauma in a group of Corded Ware skeletons from four multiple graves and give the most probable interpretation of the site, based upon all available bioarchaeological evidence. The pattern of observed injuries in male, female, and subadult skeletons, including cranial trauma, arrow wounds, and fractures of the forearm and hands points towards a violent event that resulted in the death of all individuals, most probably a raid. In contrast to comparable Neolithic r…
Phenotypic Flexibility in the Social Organization of Clethrionomys
1990
I review the flexibility of social organization and spacing behavior in Clethrionomys. This review is based on a 6-year comparative study and several experimental studies on cyclic populations of the bank vole, C. glareolus, in Central Finland. The social organization of Clethrionomys populations shows great flexibility during both the breeding and nonbreeding season, and is dependent on habitat patchiness, food availability, Predation, kinship, philopatry, and familiarity between individuals. The first three factors are most important in destabilizing a population, whereas the last three stabilize a population without exhausting its resources. Female territoriality can weaken in a producti…