The impact of male burials on the construction of Corded Ware identity: Reconstructing networks of information in the 3rd millennium BC

Abstract

The emergence of Corded Ware Groups throughout Europe in the 3rd millennium BC is one of the most defining events in European history. From the Wolga to the Rhine communities start to speak Indo-European languages and bury their dead in an extremely similar fashion. Recent ancient DNA-analyses identify a massive migration from the Eurasian steppe as the prime cause for this event. However, there is a fundamental difference between expressing a Corded Ware identity—the sharing of world views and ideas—and having a specific DNA-profile. Therefore, we argue that investigating the exchange of cultural information on burial rites between these communities serves as a crucial complement to the exchange of biological information. By adopting a practice perspective to 1161 Corded Ware burials throughout north-western Europe, combined with similarity indexes and network representations, we demonstrate a high degree of information sharing on the burial ritual between different regions. Moreover, we show that male burials are much more international in character than female burials and as such can be considered as the vector along which cultural information and Corded Ware identity was transmitted. This finding highlights an underlying complex societal organization of Corded Ware burial rites in which gender roles had a significant impact on the composition and transmission of cultural information. Our findings corroborate recent studies that suggest the Corded Ware was a male focused society.

Migrations or local interactions? Spheres of interaction in third-millennium BC Central Europe

“…Working within the framework of the polythetic model of culture, it can be argued that some aspects of daily life were shared with a supra-regional group, while other elements were shared with local communities, and yet others pertained to a single household. The ways in which gender groups were differently embedded in both supra-regional entities and local contexts can be cited as an example (Bourgeois & Kroon 2017). Archaeologists, recently followed by archaeogeneticists, often refrain from studying societies as a whole, confining themselves to interpreting the limited data that are defined as constituting an archaeological culture.…”

The genomic ancestry of the Scandinavian Battle Axe Culture people and their relation to the broader Corded Ware horizon

“…R1a has been found in Mesolithic and Neolithic Ukraine [1,31,32]. This opens the possibility that the Yamnaya and CWC complexes may have been structured in terms of paternal lineages—possibly due to patrilineal inheritance systems in the societies [47,48]—and that genetic studies have not yet targeted the direct sources of the expansions into central and northern Europe.…”

Corded Ware cultural complexity uncovered using genomic and isotopic analysis from south-eastern Poland

“…One of the most characteristic features of the CWC complex are the funeral rituals that quickly spread over a large part of the Central Europe 28 . Attempts have been made to identify and understand the migration patterns within this vast cultural complex, and whether there were regional subgroups or other kinds of subdivisions 11,12,20,29 .…”

“…To identify and to understand how different subgroups of the Corded Ware complex interacted with each other and the surrounding populations, an in-depth analysis of individuals representing this cultural complex during a highly important period in prehistory (2800-2300 BCE) is of great importance 29 . The present study goes deeper by also examining kinship of the individuals, which will aid the understanding of the intricate networks and social structures of the CWC subgroups 28 . By further investigating the genomic signatures among the regional CWC population in south-eastern Poland, a more complete yet complex image will emerge with several admixture events from different cultural groups.…”