Tumuli with circular ditch and the ritual scenario among Corded Ware Culture societies on the North European Plain

In the literature on the subject, the opinion is predominant that the construction of Corded Ware Culture (CWC) tumuli was connected with a single event, namely the burial of a person. The supposition that all actions, including digging a grave, depositing the body, digging a ditch and raising a tumulus, were made during one ceremony is still commonly accepted. In the last few years, however, in the area under investigation several new finds were unearthed which seem to be contradictory to the opinions mentioned above. This turns our attention to a new more complex explanation. Moreover, we can also use these new finds to reinterpret old data. In this paper the authors intend to analyze certain Corded Ware Culture graves from the North European Lowland. In the next step, the reconstruction of individual ritual scenarios for each of them will be presented. The analysis shows that a round ditch or a tumulus were often merely individual stages in a long lasting process and a very complex ritual scenario.Czebreszuk Janusz, Szmyt Marzena. Tumuli with Circular Ditch and the Ritual Scenario among Corded Ware Culture Societies on the North European Plain. In: Ancestral Landscape. Burial mounds in the Copper and Bronze Ages (Central and Eastern Europe – Balkans – Adriatic – Aegean, 4th-2nd millennium B.C.) Proceedings of the International Conference held in Udine, May 15th-18th 2008. Lyon : Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, 2012. pp. 321-328. (Travaux de la Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée. Série recherches archéologiques, 58

Dead Animals and Living Society

The social life of animals in the societies of the past was mostly that of ritual. One can have a closer look at the question by examining the so-called animal burials (= animal deposits). In this paper the case area shall be Kujavia, a region situated in central Poland. The collection of data on animal deposits, made here by the populations of the Late Neolithic Globular Amphora culture, has – when compared to data for other regions – a number of specific characteristics. Special mention deserves the clear tendency to place deposits in pits within settlement bounds. A smaller group is made up of deposits in direct or indirect connection with graves of human beings. In this way dead (killed?) and intentionally buried animals mostly became part of space used by the living members of the community. Another important observation concerns preferences in selecting animals for use in different spheres of human activity including ritual ones

Pottery of Pikutkowo Style and the Processes of the Eneolithisation of "Megalithic Cultures” in the 4th Millennium BC

The authors discuss the current state of knowledge concerning the specific pottery features of the Funnel Beaker culture (FBC) that constitute the "cycle of Pikutkowo stylistics”. These characteristics are especially strongly represented in the Kuyavia region  where the changes in the "Pikutkowo” set of characteristics define phases III B and III B-C of the FBC, dated to 3700–3200 BC. Relatively quickly, because already in the period 3700–3600 BC, "Pikutkowo” pottery appears not only in the Polish Lowlands (including Greater Poland and Central Poland, as well as in the Chełmno Land and the Gostynin Lake District), but also in the old upland areas located in the upper Vistula basin. The latest data indicate that at the same time „Pikutkowo” characteristics are also present in FBC assemblages from the Subcarpathian foothills, as well as from the upper Dniester. In the final centuries of the first half of the fourth millennium BC, "Pikutkowo” features were resent with varying intensity within the borders of the Vistula and Odra catchment area in the west and the Dniester drainage basin in the east. The authors argue that this wide distribution designates the "Pikutkowo stylistics space”, which was a zone of active circulation of cultural patterns within the FBC. The culture-forming potential of this zone is best confirmed by the phenomenon of the transfer of one of the key innovations at the time, i.e. copper (including arsenic copper) processing

First evidence for the forging of gold in an Early Bronze Age Site of Central Europe (2200–1800 BCE)

Evidence of gold processing in the fortified site of Bruszczewo (Poland) is the first testimony of the production of gold artefacts in a domestic Early Bronze Age site of Central Europe. This paper highlights the potential of macrolithic tool ensembles as a key element for the recognition of metallurgical work processes. Moreover, it presents an optimised methodological approach to tackle the application of stone tools in metallurgical production, based on technological characterisation, use-wear analysis, portable X-ray fluorescence, transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Finally, the absence of gold sources in Central Europe raises the question about the origin of the metal, constituting an especially striking issue, as gold was a raw material of restricted access. As Bruszczewo was one of the few enclosed Early Bronze Age sites north of the Central European Mountain Range, the patterning of metal processing (including gold) sheds light on the mode of the production of metal artefacts, apparently restricted to central sites of power, which controlled the communication trails.47Journal of Archaeological Science: Report

Genetic continuity, isolation, and gene flow in Stone Age Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract The genomic landscape of Stone Age Europe was shaped by multiple migratory waves and population replacements, but different regions do not all show the same patterns. To refine our understanding of the population dynamics before and after the dawn of the Neolithic, we generated and analyzed genomic sequence data from human remains of 56 individuals from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Eneolithic across Central and Eastern Europe. We found that Mesolithic European populations formed a geographically widespread isolation-by-distance zone ranging from Central Europe to Siberia, which was already established 10 000 years ago. We also found contrasting patterns of population continuity during the Neolithic transition: people around the lower Dnipro Valley region, Ukraine, showed continuity over 4 000 years, from the Mesolithic to the end of Neolithic, in contrast to almost all other parts of Europe where population turnover drove this cultural change, including vast areas of Central Europe and around the Danube River

Unraveling ancestry, kinship, and violence in a Late Neolithic mass grave

The third millennium BCE was a period of major cultural and demographic changes in Europe that signaled the beginning of the Bronze Age. People from the Pontic steppe expanded westward, leading to the formation of the Corded Ware complex and transforming the genetic landscape of Europe. At the time, the Globular Amphora culture (3300–2700 BCE) existed over large parts of Central and Eastern Europe, but little is known about their interaction with neighboring Corded Ware groups and steppe societies. Here we present a detailed study of a Late Neolithic mass grave from southern Poland belonging to the Globular Amphora culture and containing the remains of 15 men, women, and children, all killed by blows to the head. We sequenced their genomes to between 1.1- and 3.9-fold coverage and performed kinship analyses that demonstrate that the individuals belonged to a large extended family. The bodies had been carefully laid out according to kin relationships by someone who evidently knew the deceased. From a population genetic viewpoint, the people from Koszyce are clearly distinct from neighboring Corded Ware groups because of their lack of steppe-related ancestry. Although the reason for the massacre is unknown, it is possible that it was connected with the expansion of Corded Ware groups, which may have resulted in competition for resources and violent conflict. Together with the archaeological evidence, these analyses provide an unprecedented level of insight into the kinship structure and social behavior of a Late Neolithic community