A Craniometric Perspective on the Transition to Agriculture in Europe

Debates surrounding the nature of the Neolithic demographic transition in Europe have historically centered on two opposing models: a demic diffusion model whereby incoming farmers from the Near East and Anatolia effectively replaced or completely assimilated indigenous Mesolithic foraging communities, and an indigenist model resting on the assumption that ideas relating to agriculture and animal domestication diffused from the Near East but with little or no gene flow. The extreme versions of these dichotomous models were heavily contested primarily on the basis of archeological and modern genetic data. However, in recent years a growing acceptance has arisen of the likelihood that both processes were ongoing throughout the Neolithic transition and that a more complex, regional approach is required to fully understand the change from a foraging to a primarily agricultural mode of subsistence in Europe. Craniometric data were particularly useful for testing these more complex scenarios, as they can reliably be employed as a proxy for the genetic relationships among Mesolithic and Neolithic populations. In contrast, modern genetic data assume that modern European populations accurately reflect the genetic structure of Europe at the time of the Neolithic transition, while ancient DNA data are still not geographically or temporally detailed enough to test continent-wide processes. Here, with particular emphasis on the role of craniometric analyses, we review the current state of knowledge regarding the cultural and biological nature of the Neolithic transition in Europe

Cranial variation and the transition to agriculture in Europe

Debates surrounding the nature of the Neolithic demographic transition in Europe have historically centred on two opposing models; a \u27demic\u27 diffusion model whereby incoming farmers from the Near East and Anatolia effectively replaced or completely assimilated indigenous Mesolithic foraging communities and an \u27indigenist\u27 model resting on the assumption that ideas relating to agriculture and animal domestication diffused from the Near East, but with little or no gene flow. The extreme versions of these dichotomous models have been heavily contested primarily on the basis of archaeological and modern genetic data. However, in recent years there has been a growing acceptance of the likelihood that both processes were ongoing throughout the Neolithic transition and that a more complex, regional approach is required to fully understand the change from a foraging to a primarily agricultural mode of subsistence in Europe. Craniometric data have been particularly useful for testing these more complex scenarios, as they can reliably be employed as a proxy for the genetic relationships amongst Mesolithic and Neolithic populations. In contrast, modern genetic data assume that modern European populations accurately reflect the genetic structure of Europe at the time of the Neolithic transition, while ancient DNA data are still not geographically or temporally detailed enough to test continent-wide processes. Here, with particular emphasis on the role of craniometric analyses, we review the current state of knowledge regarding the cultural and biological nature of the Neolithic transition in Europe

Craniometric analysis of European Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic samples supports discontinuity at the Last Glacial Maximum

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) represents the most significant climatic event since the emergence of anatomically modern humans (AMH). In Europe, the LGM may have played a role in changing morphological features as a result of adaptive and stochastic processes. We use craniometric data to examine morphological diversity in pre- and post-LGM specimens. Craniometric variation is assessed across four periods—pre-LGM, late glacial, Early Holocene and Middle Holocene—using a large, well-dated, data set. Our results show significant differences across the four periods, using a MANOVA on size-adjusted cranial measurements. A discriminant function analysis shows separation between pre-LGM and later groups. Analyses repeated on a subsample, controlled for time and location, yield similar results. The results are largely influenced by facial measurements and are most consistent with neutral demographic processes. These findings suggest that the LGM had a major impact on AMH populations in Europe prior to the Neolithic.https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms509

Craniometric Data Supports Demic Diffusion Model for the Spread of Agriculture into Europe

BACKGROUND:The spread of agriculture into Europe and the ancestry of the first European farmers have been subjects of debate and controversy among geneticists, archaeologists, linguists and anthropologists. Debates have centred on the extent to which the transition was associated with the active migration of people as opposed to the diffusion of cultural practices. Recent studies have shown that patterns of human cranial shape variation can be employed as a reliable proxy for the neutral genetic relationships of human populations. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Here, we employ measurements of Mesolithic (hunter-gatherers) and Neolithic (farmers) crania from Southwest Asia and Europe to test several alternative population dispersal and hunter-farmer gene-flow models. We base our alternative hypothetical models on a null evolutionary model of isolation-by-geographic and temporal distance. Partial Mantel tests were used to assess the congruence between craniometric distance and each of the geographic model matrices, while controlling for temporal distance. Our results demonstrate that the craniometric data fit a model of continuous dispersal of people (and their genes) from Southwest Asia to Europe significantly better than a null model of cultural diffusion. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Therefore, this study does not support the assertion that farming in Europe solely involved the adoption of technologies and ideas from Southwest Asia by indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Moreover, the results highlight the utility of craniometric data for assessing patterns of past population dispersal and gene flow

An integrative skeletal and paleogenomic analysis of stature variation suggests relatively reduced health for early european farmers

Human culture, biology, and health were shaped dramatically by the onset of agriculture ∼12,000 y B.P. This shift is hypothesized to have resulted in increased individual fitness and population growth as evidenced by archaeological and population genomic data alongside a decline in physiological health as inferred from skeletal remains. Here, we consider osteological and ancient DNA data from the same prehistoric individuals to study human stature variation as a proxy for health across a transition to agriculture. Specifically, we compared “predicted” genetic contributions to height from paleogenomic data and “achieved” adult osteological height estimated from long bone measurements for 167 individuals across Europe spanning the Upper Paleolithic to Iron Age (∼38,000 to 2,400 B.P.). We found that individuals from the Neolithic were shorter than expected (given their individual polygenic height scores) by an average of −3.82 cm relative to individuals from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (P = 0.040) and −2.21 cm shorter relative to post-Neolithic individuals (P = 0.068), with osteological vs. expected stature steadily increasing across the Copper (+1.95 cm relative to the Neolithic), Bronze (+2.70 cm), and Iron (+3.27 cm) Ages. These results were attenuated when we additionally accounted for genome-wide genetic ancestry variation: for example, with Neolithic individuals −2.82 cm shorter than expected on average relative to pre-Neolithic individuals (P = 0.120). We also incorporated observations of paleopathological indicators of nonspecific stress that can persist from childhood to adulthood in skeletal remains into our model. Overall, our work highlights the potential of integrating disparate datasets to explore proxies of health in prehistory.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Comparison of Handaxes from Bose Basin (China) and the Western Acheulean Indicates Convergence of Form, Not Cognitive Differences

Alleged differences between Palaeolithic assemblages from eastern Asia and the west have been the focus of controversial discussion for over half a century, most famously in terms of the so-called ‘Movius Line’. Recent discussion has centered on issues of comparability between handaxes from eastern Asian and ‘Acheulean’ examples from western portions of the Old World. Here, we present a multivariate morphometric analysis in order to more fully document how Mid-Pleistocene (i.e. ∼803 Kyr) handaxes from Bose Basin, China compare to examples from the west, as well as with additional (Mode 1) cores from across the Old World. Results show that handaxes from both the western Old World and Bose are significantly different from the Mode 1 cores, suggesting a gross comparability with regard to functionally-related form. Results also demonstrate overlap between the ranges of shape variation in Acheulean handaxes and those from Bose, demonstrating that neither raw material nor cognitive factors were an absolute impediment to Bose hominins in making comparable handaxe forms to their hominin kin west of the Movius Line. However, the shapes of western handaxes are different from the Bose examples to a statistically significant degree. Moreover, the handaxe assemblages from the western Old World are all more similar to each other than any individual assemblage is to the Bose handaxes. Variation in handaxe form is also comparatively high for the Bose material, consistent with suggestions that they represent an emergent, convergent instance of handaxe technology authored by Pleistocene hominins with cognitive capacities directly comparable to those of ‘Acheulean’ hominins

Revisiting the homoiology hypothesis: the impact of phenotypic plasticity on the reconstruction of human population history from craniometric data

Homoiologies are homoplasies that are caused by nongenetic environmental factors. The homoiology hypothesis predicts that osseous regions subject to repeated biomechanical stress during growth should be more variable and, therefore, less reliable for the reconstruction of phylogeny compared with osseous regions relatively unaffected by stress. Previous studies based on the analysis of multiple primate species found that regions of the cranium subject to masticatory-induced stress were significantly more variable than non-masticatory regions, as predicted by the homoiology hypothesis. However, these studies also found that the masticatory regions were no less reliable for reconstructing primate phylogenetic relationships when subjected to parsimony analysis. It was suggested, therefore, that homoiology may be a more potent problem for the reconstruction of phylogeny at the intraspecific level rather than interspecific phylogenetics. This suggestion was tested here using matched molecular and craniometric data for 12 modern human populations. The results show that, as predicted by the homoiology hypothesis, regions of the human cranium related to mastication were more variable than non-masticatory regions. However, masticatory regions were no less reliable for inferring human population history. Therefore, the results match those found from the interspecific analysis of primate species and do not support the suggestion that homoiology is a greater problem for the analysis of intraspecific taxa. The results also suggest that within-taxon variability cannot be relied upon to predict the phylogenetic efficacy of morphometric characters

Global human mandibular variation reflects differences in agricultural and hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies

Variation in the masticatory behavior of hunter-gatherer and agricultural populations is hypothesized to be one of the major forces affecting the form of the human mandible. However, this has yet to be analyzed at a global level. Here, the relationship between global mandibular shape variation and subsistence economy is tested, while controlling for the potentially confounding effects of shared population history, geography, and climate. The results demonstrate that the mandible, in contrast to the cranium, significantly reflects subsistence strategy rather than neutral genetic patterns, with hunter-gatherers having consistently longer and narrower mandibles than agriculturalists. These results support notions that a decrease in masticatory stress among agriculturalists causes the mandible to grow and develop differently. This developmental argument also explains why there is often a mismatch between the size of the lower face and the dentition, which, in turn, leads to increased prevalence of dental crowding and malocclusions in modern postindustrial populations. Therefore, these results have important implications for our understanding of human masticatory adaptation

Interlandmark distances for 15 hominoid species

Logged data for 39 traits utilized in Schroeder and von Cramon-Taubadel (2017