Early herding at Măgura-Boldul lui Moş Ivănuş (early sixth millennium BC, Romania): environments and seasonality from stable isotope analysis

International audienceStable isotope analyses were conducted on faunal remains from the site of Măgura-Boldul lui MoşIvănuş with the objective of characterizing the environments and seasonality of husbandry in theearliest Neolithic (Gura Baciului-Cârcea/Starčevo-Criş I) of southern Romania. Results from bonecollagen analysis indicate extensive herding strategies for cattle and pigs. However, sequential analysisin tooth enamel also provides evidence for winter leaf foddering in one bovine, potentially kept by thesettlement over winter. In some instances, sheep were fed a 13C-enriched resource in late winter, whichmay have also coincided with lactation. It could not be determined whether this contribution was fromC3 or C4 plants. Although isolated, these findings may be important in evaluating how early agriculturalcommunities dealt with environmental constraints. These results are also interpreted withreference to the models of intensive mixed farming systems recently proposed by Bogaard (2004) andHalstead (2006)

Approches combinées pour appréhender l’évolution du cochon domestique en Roumanie : morphométrie géométrique, ADN ancien et analyses isotopiques

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The genomic history of southeastern Europe

Farming was first introduced to Europe in the mid-seventh millennium bc, and was associated with migrants from Anatolia who settled in the southeast before spreading throughout Europe. Here, to understand the dynamics of this process, we analysed genome-wide ancient DNA data from 225 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and surrounding regions between 12000 and 500 bc. We document a west-east cline of ancestry in indigenous hunter-gatherers and, in eastern Europe, the early stages in the formation of Bronze Age steppe ancestry. We show that the first farmers of northern and western Europe dispersed through southeastern Europe with limited hunter-gatherer admixture, but that some early groups in the southeast mixed extensively with hunter-gatherers without the sex-biased admixture that prevailed later in the north and west. We also show that southeastern Europe continued to be a nexus between east and west after the arrival of farmers, with intermittent genetic contact with steppe populations occurring up to 2,000 years earlier than the migrations from the steppe that ultimately replaced much of the population of northern Europe.Iain Mathieson … Wolfgang Haak … David Reic