United in death—related by blood? Genetic and archeometric analyses of skeletal remains from the neolithic earthwork bruchsal‐aue

Abstract

Although clear kinship relations among the infants remain unconfirmed, a relationship could also be indicated by the positioning of the bodies in the burial pit. Whereas a common cause of death might have been the presupposition for their special treatment, interpersonal relationships were likely the decisive factor for the multiple burial.

Multi-scale ancient DNA analyses confirm the western origin of Michelsberg farmers and document probable practices of human sacrifice

“…The maternal data gathered for the Gougenheim group (N = 21) were then grouped with the mtDNA data previously published for 9 individuals from the Michelsberg site of Bruchsal Aue in current Germany [23] and permitted the more precise description of the maternal gene pool of Michelsberg communities ("MICH" group, S6 Table). We then compared the MICH maternal pool, both at the haplogroup frequencies (PCA (S3 Table and Fig 3) and Ward Clustering (S1 Fig)) and at the haplotype composition levels (F ST values and MDS) with ancient H-G and Neolithic groups (see S2 Table and S2 Fig for details).…”

“…We selected farmers’ groups attributed to well-identified waves of Neolithization, i.e., starting with the Stärcevo groups for Central Europe and the Danubian wave of Neolithization and starting from the Cardial groups for the southern Mediterranean wave (see S6 Table). The Gougenheim group was gathered with the data published for the Michelsberg site of Bruchsal-Aue, in western Germany [23]. The global sequence dataset was divided into 16 chronological, geographical and cultural groups in order to discuss (i) the implication of different anterior groups in the Michelsberg gene pool constitution and (ii) the relationships of the Michelsberg group with contemporaneous and later populations.…”

“…The importance and the speed of the cultural changes perceived led the author to consider that major migration should have been implied in these processes [20, 22]. At present, no genetic evidence is available to support this "western hypothesis"; only one Michelsberg group has been genetically analyzed (Bruchsal-Aue in western Germany [23]; N = 9), and its small gene pool fitted with the Central European genetic picture [5, 11]. …”

Early medieval stone‐lined graves in Southern Germany: analysis of an emerging noble class

“…Bold numbers 5 graves investigated; highlighted in grey 5 stone-lined graves; black line 5 5 meters scale. Sexing was conducted examining seven pelvic features and the index ischio-pubicus (Novotn y, 1972), as well as eight features of the skull and mandible (Ferembach, Schwidetzky, & Stloukal, 1979;R€ osing et al, 2005;Steckel, Larsen, Sciulli, & Walker, 2005 Sample preparation, aDNA extraction and analyses of mtDNA and Y-STRs were carried out as previously described (Keller et al, 2015;Seifert et al, 2013). Following Martin (1928), age at death was classified into the following stages: Infans I (0-6 years), infans II (7-12 years), juvenile (13-20 years), adult (21-40 years), mature (41-60 years), senile (60-x years).…”

“…viduals are not related") using the software Familias 3(Egeland, Mostad, Mevåg, & Stenersen, 2000;Kling, Tillmar, & Egeland, 2014) as previously described byKeller et al (2015). Individuals buried within one stone-lined grave were tested against each other.…”