Search results for "bronze age"

The Bronze Age in France

2013

Landscape and wood-fuel in Akrotiri (Thera, Greece) during the Bronze Age

2017

Abstract Wood charcoal macroremains originating from the archaeological site of Akrotiri, Thera (Greece) have been analyzed. The results obtained suggest the existence of thermophilous vegetation on the island from the Early Cycladic period right up to the catastrophic eruption of the volcano in the Late Cycladic I period. The comparative evaluation of the results gained from this study and the previous ones indicates that during the Early Cycladic period an open Pinus type brutia/halepensis (Cyprus/Aleppo pine) forest prevailed on the island, accompanied by maquis vegetation. From the Middle Cycladic period and onwards a shift towards open maquis vegetation is observed. At the same time, s…

A 4000-year long Late Holocene climate record from Hermes Cave (Peloponnese, Greece)

2020

The societal and cultural development during the Bronze Age and the subsequent Iron Age was enormous in Greece, however interrupted by two significant transformations around 4200 years b2k (Early Helladic II/III; b2k refers to years before 2000 CE) and 3200 years b2k (end of Late Helladic III). Artefacts and building remains provide some insights into the cultural evolution, but only little is known about environmental and climatic changes on a detailed temporal and spatial scale. Here we present a 4000-year long stalagmite record (GH17-05) from Hermes Cave, Greece, located on Mount Ziria in the close vicinity of the Late Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae and the Classical-Hellenistic polis of …

Landscape and fuel management in the context of prehistoric and historical occupations of Cova des Moro (Manacor, Mallorca, Spain)

2021

Abstract In this paper, the first results of charcoal analyses carried out at Cova des Moro (Manacor, Mallorca, Spain) are presented. This cave is an archaeological but also palaeontological site that provides information on endemic fauna (the extinct caprine Myotragus balearicus) before the arrival of humans and, later, the relationship between the first farmers and the landscape. Several human occupations in the cave have been documented, from the Chalcolithic (end of the 3rd millennium cal BC), the Bronze Age (2nd millennium cal BC) and, finally, the Almohad period (13th century AD), during which the cave was used for different purposes. The first results of charcoal analyses at Cova des…

Ancient cattle genomics, origins, and rapid turnover in the Fertile Crescent

2019

Cattle were domesticated ∼10,000 years ago, but analysis of modern breeds has not elucidated their origins. Verdugo et al. performed genome-wide analysis of 67 ancient Near Eastern Bos taurus DNA samples. Several populations of ancient aurochs were progenitors of domestic cows. These genetic lineages mixed ∼4000 years ago in a region around the Indus Valley. Interestingly, mitochondrial analysis indicated that genetic material likely derived from arid-adapted Bos indicus (zebu) bulls was introduced by introgression.Science, this issue p. 173Genome-wide analysis of 67 ancient Near Eastern cattle, Bos taurus, remains reveals regional variation that has since been obscured by admixture in mode…

The maternal genetic make-up of the Iberian Peninsula between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age

2017

Agriculture first reached the Iberian Peninsula around 5700 BCE. However, little is known about the genetic structure and changes of prehistoric populations in different geographic areas of Iberia. In our study, we focus on the maternal genetic makeup of the Neolithic (~ 5500–3000 BCE), Chalcolithic (~ 3000–2200 BCE) and Early Bronze Age (~ 2200–1500 BCE). We report ancient mitochondrial DNA results of 213 individuals (151 HVS-I sequences) from the northeast, central, southeast and southwest regions and thus on the largest archaeogenetic dataset from the Peninsula to date. Similar to other parts of Europe, we observe a discontinuity between hunter-gatherers and the first farmers of the Neol…

The population genomics of archaeological transition in west Iberia: Investigation of ancient substructure using imputation and haplotype-based metho…

2017

We analyse new genomic data (0.05–2.95x) from 14 ancient individuals from Portugal distributed from the Middle Neolithic (4200–3500 BC) to the Middle Bronze Age (1740–1430 BC) and impute genomewide diploid genotypes in these together with published ancient Eurasians. While discontinuity is evident in the transition to agriculture across the region, sensitive haplotype-based analyses suggest a significant degree of local hunter-gatherer contribution to later Iberian Neolithic populations. A more subtle genetic influx is also apparent in the Bronze Age, detectable from analyses including haplotype sharing with both ancient and modern genomes, D-statistics and Y-chromosome lineages. However, t…

The spread of steppe and Iranian-related ancestry in the islands of the western Mediterranean

2020

Steppe-pastoralist-related ancestry reached Central Europe by at least 2500 bc, whereas Iranian farmer-related ancestry was present in Aegean Europe by at least 1900 bc. However, the spread of these ancestries into the western Mediterranean, where they have contributed to many populations that live today, remains poorly understood. Here, we generated genome-wide ancient-DNA data from the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Sardinia, increasing the number of individuals with reported data from 5 to 66. The oldest individual from the Balearic Islands (~2400 bc) carried ancestry from steppe pastoralists that probably derived from west-to-east migration from Iberia, although two later Balearic individ…

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…

Genetic structure and differentiation from early bronze age in the mediterranean island of sicily: Insights from ancient mitochondrial genomes

2022

Sicily is one of the main islands of the Mediterranean Sea, and it is characterized by a variety of archaeological records, material culture and traditions, reflecting the history of migrations and populations’ interaction since its first colonization, during the Paleolithic. These deep and complex demographic and cultural dynamics should have affected the genomic landscape of Sicily at different levels; however, the relative impact of these migrations on the genomic structure and differentiation within the island remains largely unknown. The available Sicilian modern genetic data gave a picture of the current genetic structure, but the paucity of ancient data did not allow so far to make p…