Strontium Isotopes and Prehistoric Human Migration: The Bell Beaker Period in Central Europe

Price, T. Douglas; Knipper, Corina; Grupe, Gisela; Smrčka, Václav

doi:10.1177/1461957104047992

Cited by 189 publications

(167 citation statements)

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“…The conglomerates are more difficult to estimate but are likely terrestrial. To the east of the outlet of the Danube Gorges, the Romanian plain is dominated by the alluvium of the Danube, measured further west at 0.7088-0.7092 (46). However, measurements of various human and animal samples from this area suggest that higher values may be more accurate.…”

Section: Geology and Strontium Isotopes In The Danube Gorgesmentioning

confidence: 87%

Strontium isotopes document greater human mobility at the start of the Balkan Neolithic

Borić

Price

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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103

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Questions about how farming and the Neolithic way of life spread across Europe have been hotly debated topics in archaeology for decades. For a very long time, two models have dominated the discussion: migrations of farming groups from southwestern Asia versus diffusion of domesticates and new ideas through the existing networks of local forager populations. New strontium isotope data from the Danube Gorges in the north-central Balkans, an area characterized by a rich burial record spanning the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, show a significant increase in nonlocal individuals from ∼6200 calibrated B.C., with several waves of migrants into this region. These results are further enhanced by dietary evidence based on carbon and nitrogen isotopes and an increasingly high chronological resolution obtained on a large sample of directly dated individuals. This dataset provides robust evidence for a brief period of coexistence between indigenous groups and early farmers before farming communities absorbed the foragers completely in the first half of the sixth millennium B.C.forager-farmer interaction | isotope analysis | the Balkans | Lepenski Vir | southeastern Europe

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Section: Geology and Strontium Isotopes In The Danube Gorgesmentioning

confidence: 87%

Strontium isotopes document greater human mobility at the start of the Balkan Neolithic

Borić

Price

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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103

101

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“…The vast majority of research questions focus on the identification of immigrants amongst cemetery populations as these may illuminate major changes in material culture (Price et al 2004), the primary colonisation of islands (Bentley et al 2007a, Price andGestsdottir 2006), invasions, slavery and warfare (Bentley et al 2007b, Cox and Sealy 1997, Schroeder et al 2009). Once immigrants are identified, the next question is inevitably, if they are not from here, where did they come from?…”

Section: Accepted For Publication In the Annals Of Human Biology 2010mentioning

confidence: 99%

Passports from the past: Investigating human dispersals using strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel

Montgomery

2010

Annals of Human Biology

287

261

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Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractStrontium isotopes are a powerful tool which provide information about provenance directly from the tissues of humans rather than the grave context and burial goods.Geographical variation in strontium isotopes is primarily controlled by the underlying geology but there are many other factors that need to be considered before migratory individuals can be identified. Consequently, despite many studies which have shown that the method works well, it is clear that much remains to be clarified and it will not work for every question or in every place. It rests on the assumption that people were sourcing their food locally and that there is a measurable strontium isotope difference between the place the person migrated from and the place they migrated to. As migrants may deliberately seek out familiar soil types and terrains in their new homeland, some questions surrounding major migration events may prove intractable for this technique. Other factors that can create heterogeneity or homogeneity leading to false positives or false negatives, such as human choices or coastal subsistence, are explored and the metabolism of strontium into human tooth enamel is discussed.Several models of land use choices by humans are presented to highlight the subtleties inherent in the isotope data and these are used to interpret archaeological human isotope ratios from three studies.

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“…The lack of unambiguous genetic signal associated with sex-biased transmission actually echoes the absence of gender patterning in human mobility demonstrated by Sr studies across the entire Bell Beaker distribution area (e.g. Price et al 2004, Evans et al 2006, Boel 2011; see also for the Corded Ware Sjögren et al 2016 who report possible female exogamy, although the sex ratio of local / non-local individuals does not present any statistical significance). The period is indeed characterised by high frequency of human mobility, in some exceptional cases over long distance (Fitzpatrick 2011) but which concerns in equal measure men and women, ruling out the presence of of consistent postmarital relocation rules.…”

Section: Fitness Marriage Demographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Population history in third-millennium-BC Europe: assessing the contribution of genetics

Linden

2016

World Archaeology

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Several recent high-profile aDNA studies have claimed to have identified major migrations during the third millennium BC in Europe. This contribution offers a brief review of these studies, and especially their role in understanding the genetic make up of modern European populations.Although the technical sophistication of aDNA studies is beyond doubt, the underlying archaeological assumptions prove relatively naive and the findings at odd with more 'traditional' archaeological data. Although the existence of past migrations needs to be acknowledged and fully considered by archaeologists, it does not offer neither a robust explanatory factor, nor an enduring platform for interdisciplinary dialogue betweeen archaeology and genetics. Alternative hypotheses are briefly explored.

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Strontium Isotopes and Prehistoric Human Migration: The Bell Beaker Period in Central Europe

Cited by 189 publications

References 50 publications

Strontium isotopes document greater human mobility at the start of the Balkan Neolithic

Strontium isotopes document greater human mobility at the start of the Balkan Neolithic

Passports from the past: Investigating human dispersals using strontium isotope analysis of tooth enamel

Population history in third-millennium-BC Europe: assessing the contribution of genetics

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