‘One from the west, the other from the south’. A short study on fibulae in Vekerzug culture

This study deals with the finds of fibulae from the Hallstatt period sites of the Vekerzug culture from Eastern Hungary and Southern Slovakia. The majority of the fibulae come from graves, the rest are either stray or settlement finds. Providing a more complex overview of the fibulae was at the centre of our interest, focused mainly on a cultural and spatial analysis, their possible relation to the specific gender or age category of the burial individuals and on possible importance of the fibulae for the costumes of the Vekerzug culture. Two main origin groups of the fibulae were identified, namely the fibulae of the Hallstatt type and the fibulae of Balkan origin. The fibulae were predominantly found in the graves of adult females. Their costumes do not differ from the female costumes of the Vekerzug culture without fibulae

Well-fed even in the next world? Animal bones in the graves and settlements of Vekerzug culture

In the present study, we deal with numerous animal bones from the sities of the Vekerzug culture in Eastern Hungary und Southwestern Slovakia, which come mainly from archaeozoological quite well recorded and analysed settlements. Their grave findings are rare and they are one of the special features of the burial rites of that culture. Providing a more complex archaeological overview of these finds was at the centre of our interest. Animal bones from the graves and settlements were mainly represented by cattle, sheep/goats, pigs, occasionally horses und their interpretation in graves as the remains of meat dishes ist highly probable

‘With a Weapon in Hand and a Horse by Side.’ Weapons and Horse Harness in Graves of Vekerzug Culture from an Interregional Perspective

This study deals with graves of Vekerzug culture, which contained weapons and horse harness. These graves reflect an evident social differentiation of Vekerzug society. Special attention in the study was paid to the most accurate geographic and cultural determination of the origin of individual weapon types and horse harness components in the context of new knowledge about Vekerzug culture and answering the question to what extent these finds reflect its interregional contacts. Important is also definition of possible armament schemes of Vekerzug culture and their comparison with armament schemes in the neighbouring cultural regions, especially with the forest-steppe Western Podolian group, Ciumbrud culture and Ferigile culture. Cultural and spatial analyses of individual types of weapons and horse harness as well as of the armament schemes of Vekerzug culture show that the problem of interregional contacts of this culture, mainly the eastern ones, must be considered more differentially than it has been previously presented in scientific literature. At the same time, they confirm the recent knowledge that the effect of eastern influences on Vekerzug culture is in scientific literature without a reason constantly overestimated

Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age

Present-day people from England and Wales harbour more ancestry derived from Early European Farmers (EEF) than people of the Early Bronze Age . To understand this, we generated genome-wide data from 793 individuals, increasing data from the Middle to Late Bronze and Iron Age in Britain by 12-fold, and Western and Central Europe by 3.5-fold. Between 1000 and 875 BC, EEF ancestry increased in southern Britain (England and Wales) but not northern Britain (Scotland) due to incorporation of migrants who arrived at this time and over previous centuries, and who were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France. These migrants contributed about half the ancestry of Iron Age people of England and Wales, thereby creating a plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain. These patterns are part of a broader trend of EEF ancestry becoming more similar across central and western Europe in the Middle to Late Bronze Age, coincident with archaeological evidence of intensified cultural exchange . There was comparatively less gene flow from continental Europe during the Iron Age, and Britain's independent genetic trajectory is also reflected in the rise of the allele conferring lactase persistence to ~50% by this time compared to ~7% in central Europe where it rose rapidly in frequency only a millennium later. This suggests that dairy products were used in qualitatively different ways in Britain and in central Europe over this period. [Abstract copyright: © 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.