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The Neolithic transition in Europe: comparing broad scale genetic and local scale isotopic evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

R. Alexander Bentley ,
Lounès Chikhi  and
T. Douglas Price
R. Alexander Bentley
Affiliation:
Centre for the Evolutionary Analysis of Cultural Behaviour, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H OPY UK. (r.bentley@ucl.ac.uk)
Lounès Chikhi
Affiliation:
UMR Evolution et Diversité Biologique, CESAC UMR C 5576 – Bat. IV R3, Université Paul Sabatier, 118 Route de Narbonne, 31062- Toulouse cédex 4 France. (l.chikhi@ucl.ac.uk)
T. Douglas Price
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry, University of Wisconsin, 1180 Observatory Dr., Madison, WI 53705 USA. (tdprice@facstaff.wisc.edu)
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Abstract

Genetic studies of modern populations are raising many interesting questions about how far the modern gene pool is owed to incoming populations during the agricultural revolution in Neolithic Europe. But, as the authors show, studies of isotopic data from cemeteries reveal a picture of increasing subtlety at local level. While early farmers may have been initially newcomers in the upper Rhine they may also have soon intermarried with contemporary hunter-gatherers in the uplands.

Keywords

European Neolithic agriculturedemographystable isotope analysis
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 77 , Issue 295 , March 2003 , pp. 63 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2003

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