The earliest Neolithic sites of Europe are located in Crete and mainland Greece. A debate persists concerning whether these farmers originated in neighboring Anatolia and the role of maritime colonization. To address these issues 171 samples were collected from areas near three known early Neolithic settlements in Greece together with 193 samples from Crete. An analysis of Y-chromosome haplogro...

The Neolithic transition is the shift from hunting–gathering into farming. About 9000 years ago, the Neolithic transition began to spread from the Near East into Europe, until it reached Northern Europe about 5500 years ago. There are two main models of this spread. The demic model assumes that it was mainly due to the reproduction and dispersal of farmers. The cultural model assumes that Europ...

Many questions still remain regarding the acquisition and circulation of ancient domesticated animals across Yellow River Basin, one key areas for development complex societies in China. Here, we re-evaluate previously published strontium isotope data ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr, n = 167) from tooth enamel at 10 archaeological sites Basin to shed new light on transition between Neolithic (7000–5000 BCE) Wes...

The taxonomic composition of bone remains from the Neolithic site Pomazkino IV, located in middle reaches Kolyma River, has been determined. material is result excavations by archaeologist V.A. Kashin. We have identified lying together with artifacts Late Ymyyakhtakh culture. species represented typical representatives East Siberian fauna. osteological fish, birds and mammals It established tha...

Abrupt arid events in the post-glacial (w17.4–10 kyr BP) Dead Sea Basin (DSB) were recorded by significant lake level declines in Lake Lisan and massive deposition of gypsum and salt. Between 17.4 and 16 kyr cal BP, the lake level dropped from its late MIS2 stand of w260 m below mean sea level (m bmsl) to w330 m bmsl, depositing a thick sequence of gypsum. Between w16 and 15 kyr cal BP the lake...

At the crossroads between Africa and Eurasia, Arabia is necessarily a melting pot, its peoples enriched by successive gene flow over the generations. Estimating the timing and impact of these multiple migrations are important steps in reconstructing the key demographic events in the human history. However, current methods based on genome-wide information identify admixture events inefficiently,...

Since its first description in 2004, Homo floresiensis has been attributed to a species of its own, a descendant of H. erectus or another early hominid, a pathological form of H. sapiens, or a dwarfed H. sapiens related to the Neolithic inhabitants of Flores. In this contribution, we apply a geometric morphometric analysis to the skull of H. floresiensis (LB1) and compare it with skulls of norm...

Cattle dominate archaeozoological assemblages from the north-central Europe between the sixth and fifth millennium BC and are frequently considered as exclusively used for their meat. Dairy products may have played a greater role than previously believed. Selective pressure on the lactase persistence mutation has been modelled to have begun between 6000 and 4000 years ago in central Europe. The...

Prehistoric bone material from Gotland Island situated in the centre of the Baltic Sea (Figure 1) is remarkably well preserved due to the island’s limestone substrate. Archaeological research and excavation has been ongoing on the island since the beginning of last century (Wennersten 1907; Nihlén 1927; Stenberger et al. 1943), and the use of traditional farming methods has spared many prehisto...