The origins and spread of stock-keeping: the role of cultural and environmental influences on early Neolithic animal exploitation in Europe

It has long been recognised that the proportions of Neolithic domestic animal species—cattle, pig and sheep/goat—vary from region to region, but it has hitherto been unclear how much this variability is related to cultural practices or to environmental constraints. This study uses hundreds of faunal assemblages from across Neolithic Europe to reveal the distribution of animal use between north and south, east and west. The remarkable results present us with a geography of Neolithic animal society—from the rabbit-loving Mediterranean to the beef-eaters of the north and west. They also demonstrate that the choices made by early Neolithic herders were largely determined by their environments. Cultural links appear to have played only a minor role in the species composition of early Neolithic animal societie

Mitochondrial d-loop variation, coat colour and sex identification of Late Iron Age horses in Switzerland

In the Celtic world, horses enjoyed a prominent position as status symbols and objects of veneration, yet little is known about these Celtic horses except that they were rather small. The Late Iron Age was a time defined by increasing inter-cultural contact between Celtic peoples and the Romans. This is, amongst other features, observable in the phenotypes of domestic livestock such as horses. Amongst the usually small animals, larger ones are rarely but regularly encountered in the archaeological record. We have investigated mitochondrial (mt) DNA d-loop diversity, sex and coat colour using bones from 34 horses of different size from three Swiss sites (Mormont, Basel-Gasfabrik, Aventicum) most of them dating from 150 to 50 BCE. The aim was to characterise the diversity of matrilineages and coat colourations of Iron Age horses, and to identify molecular sex. We detected eleven mt haplotypes clustering into six haplogroups (B, D, F, I, X2, X3) in the ancient dataset (n = 19). Large individuals were all male, but smaller stallions were also identified; molecular sexing confirmed and augmented to morphological results. The horses were bay, chestnut and black in colour, and spottings or dilutions were absent in all animals. With a simplified primer system to detect premature greying, white coats can be excluded as well. The limited colour range proposes selection for monochrome animals. Additionally, ancient matrilineages were compared to modern horses from regions appertaining to the Late Roman Republic and to European pony breeds. Based on Principal Component Analysis (haplotype frequencies) and FST-values (genetic distances) the mtDNA variation of the Iron Age horses investigated here has survived in modern European breeds, particularly in northern European ponies

The Basel-Gasfabrik research project: Addressing complex topics by an integrative approach

The late La Tène period site of Basel-Gasfabrik has been under investigation for more than a century. During that time, the unfortified settlement with its two cemeteries has yielded huge amounts of everyday and exceptional objects and features. Beginning in the mid-1970s, samples were systematically collected for scientific analyses during ongoing excavations, thus producing ideal preconditions for interdisciplinary research. In 2011-2014, the international research project “Approaching the living via the dead: human remains from the Late La Tène site Basel-Gasfabrik and their cultural-historical interpretations” addressed the multifarious ways in which the Iron Age community handled their deceased. The intense collaboration involved researchers from the Archäologische Bodenforschung Basel-Stadt and the universities of Basel (CH), Mainz and Freiburg i.Br. (D) and spanned eight disciplines: archaeology, archeoanthropology, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, geoarchaeology, biogeochemistry, molecular genetics and statistics. Research topics and theoretical frameworks were developed jointly as well as procedures to combine the disciplinary results in multistage processes in order to generate integrative syntheses of novel insights. The challenges and specific research potentials of the integrative approach may serve as a positive example for future interdisciplinary research project

Miners and mining in the Late Bronze Age: a multidisciplinary study from Austria

The extraction and processing of metal ores, particularly those of copper and tin, are regarded as among the principal motors of Bronze Age society. The skills and risks of mining lie behind the weapons, tools and symbols that drove political and ideological change. But we hear much less about the miners themselves and their position in society. Who were these people? Were they rich and special, or expendable members of a hard-pressed workforce? In this study the spotlight moves from the adits, slags and furnaces to the bones and seeds, providing a sketch of dedicated prehistoric labourers in their habitat. The Mauken miners were largely dependent on imported meat and cereals, and scarcely hunted or foraged the resources of the local forest. They seem to be the servants of a command economy, encouraged to keep their minds on the jo