“Official” and “practical” kin: Inferring social and community structure from dental phenotype at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Abstract

The Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey (7400-5600 cal BC) is widely acknowledged for its role in the study of early farming communities. To better understand the social and community structure of this setting, an intracemetery biological distance analysis was conducted. Metric and nonmetric observations were recorded in both deciduous and permanent dentitions (n = 266) to explore phenotypic patterning of individuals interred within individual buildings. Specifically, this study tests the hypothesis that individuals within houses and house groupings represent family units and the social structure of Çatalhöyük was largely biological-kin based. Multivariate and univariate statistical procedures were applied to phenotypic dental data. Results indicate that inclusion for interment within a house was only minimally related to biological affinity. Moreover, the site does not appear to be organized into larger, biologically related neighborhoods of houses. These findings suggest that Çatalhöyük may not have been a kin-based society, largely because membership within a house cemetery was not solely defined on the basis of biological affinity, such as in a family group. Rather, it appears that social structure was centered on the house as the unifying social principle. The choice for interment location may have transcended biological lines thereby creating an alternate and more fluid definition of "kin." These findings can be used to understand the transition to settled life and biological patterning in this Neolithic community.

Do nuclear DNA and dental nonmetric data produce similar reconstructions of regional population history? An example from modern coastal Kenya

“…This is not to say that dental comparisons at regional (e.g., Willermet et al, 2013;Ragsdale and Edgar, 2014;Irish et al, 2014) and local (Stojanowski and Schillaci 2006;Pilloud and Larsen 2011;Stojanowski, Johnson and Duncan 2013) geographic scales cannot successfully reconstruct documented population relationships elsewhere; rather, the findings presented here provide a cautionary tale and suggest that comprehensive tests among regional populations are needed.…”

The Osteological Paradox 20 Years Later: Past Perspectives, Future Directions

“…Heterogeneous frailty, however, is also a direct result of underlying genetic variation among individuals within a population, and as such it may have a detectable biological basis reflected in subpopulation level variation. If such cryptic subpopulations have a genetic or phenotypic basis, they may be identifiable using ancient DNA (Corruccini et al 2002;Gamba et al 2011;Haak et al 2008;Schultes et al 2000) or intra-cemetery biodistance approaches Vach 1995, 1998;Ĉ esnys and Tutkuviené 2007;Jacobi 2000;Meyer et al 2012;Paul et al 2013;Pilloud and Larsen 2011;Ricaut et al 2010;Stojanowski and Schillaci 2006) combined with spatial analysis that implements the search for hidden biological patterning within archaeological sites (Sokal et al 1987;Stojanowski 2003;Usher and Allen 2005;Vach and Alt 1993). As with material culture, researchers can analyze biological data using spatial statistics and GIS to document clustering tendencies of morphological trait complexes that may reflect family-structured burial practices.…”

Bioarchaeology and Kinship: Integrating Theory, Social Relatedness, and Biology in Ancient Family Research

“…Bioarchaeologists have recently begun to consider non-biological forms of relatedness in archaeological contexts (e.g., Gregoricka 2013;Lozada 2011;Pilloud and Larsen 2011). Interpretive work of this kind creates space for alternative family structures such as fictive kin, households, residence groups, or ayllus within bioarchaeological kinship research.…”