Farming in Northern Europe: Resistance was Futile, but Archaeologically Documented

Ornaments Reveal Resistance of North European Cultures to the Spread of Farming

Authors:

Riguad et al

Abstract:

The transition to farming is the process by which human groups switched from hunting and gathering wild resources to food production. Understanding how and to what extent the spreading of farming communities from the Near East had an impact on indigenous foraging populations in Europe has been the subject of lively debates for decades. Ethnographic and archaeological studies have shown that population replacement and admixture, trade, and long distance diffusion of cultural traits lead to detectable changes in symbolic codes expressed by associations of ornaments on the human body. Here we use personal ornaments to document changes in cultural geography during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. We submitted a binary matrix of 224 bead-types found at 212 European Mesolithic and 222 Early Neolithic stratigraphic units to a series of spatial and multivariate analyses. Our results reveal consistent diachronic and geographical trends in the use of personal ornaments during the Neolithisation. Adoption of novel bead-types combined with selective appropriation of old attires by incoming farmers is identified in Southern and Central Europe while cultural resistance leading to the nearly exclusive persistence of indigenous personal ornaments characterizes Northern Europe. We argue that this pattern reflects two distinct cultural trajectories with different potential for gene flow.

Neandertal Eagle Talon Jewelry Found From Pleistocene Quaternary Croatia

Evidence for Neandertal Jewelry: Modified White-Tailed Eagle Claws at Krapina

Authors:

Radovčić et al

Abstract:

We describe eight, mostly complete white-tailed eagle (Haliaëtus [Haliaeetus] albicilla) talons from the Krapina Neandertal site in present-day Croatia, dating to approximately 130 kyrs ago. Four talons bear multiple, edge-smoothed cut marks; eight show polishing facets and/or abrasion. Three of the largest talons have small notches at roughly the same place along the plantar surface, interrupting the proximal margin of the talon blade. These features suggest they were part of a jewelry assemblage, --- the manipulations a consequence of mounting the talons in a necklace or bracelet. An associated phalanx articulates with one of the talons and has numerous cut marks, some of which are smoothed. These white-tailed eagle bones, discovered more than 100 years ago, all derive from a single level at Krapina and represent more talons than found in the entire European Mousterian period. Presence of eight talons indicates that the Krapina Neandertals acquired and curated eagle talons for some kind of symbolic purpose. Some have argued that Neandertals lacked symbolic ability or copied this behavior from modern humans. These remains clearly show that the Krapina Neandertals made jewelry well before the appearance of modern humans in Europe, extending ornament production and symbolic activity early into the European Mousterian.

Neolithic Shell Derived Beads Were Locally Made

A new study by scientists at the University of York has shed new light on the use of mollusc shells as personal adornments by Bronze Age people.

The research team used amino acid racemisation analysis (a technique used previously mainly for dating artefacts), light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy, to identify the raw materials used to make beads in a complex necklace discovered at an Early Bronze Age burial site at Great Cornard in Suffolk, UK.

They discovered that Bronze Age craftspeople used species like dog whelk and tusk shells, both of which were likely to have been sourced and worked locally, to fashion tiny disc-shaped beads in the necklace. The research is published in PLOS ONE.

The researchers included archaeologists, mathematicians, chemists and physicists, the latter from the BioArCh and York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis (YCCSA) and the Departments of Archaeology, Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics at the University of York. Dr Sonia O'Connor, of the University of Bradford's Department of Archaeological Sciences, carried out the light and electron microscopy, and prehistoric jewellery specialist Dr Alison Sheridan, of National Museums Scotland, facilitated access to the Great Cornard necklace, which had been excavated by Suffolk Archaeology.

When it was first realised that the tiny white beads had been made from shell, the question arose as to its source. Had the shell been obtained locally or did it originate from a species from further afield, perhaps even the Mediterranean thorny oyster (Spondylus)? The Mediterranean thorny oyster is a shell of long-standing symbolic and cultural significance which is known to have been used on the Continent around the time when the Great Cornard necklace was made.

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Roman Jewelry Turns up in Japanese Burial

If we consider the geographical distance and ancient means of transportation, then envisaging Roman influence in Japan seems like an unlikely event. However we are forced to reconsider this outlook since researchers have found glass jewelry belonging to the Roman Empire, in a fifth-century Utsukushi burial mound!

Extensive tests carried out by the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties on the glass jewelry, discovered at the Utsukushi burial mound in Nagaoka, Kyoto Prefecture, date the items between the first and fourth centuries AD. The researchers analyzed the components of 5mm glass beads, which have tiny fragments of gilt attached to them.

Analysis reports that the light yellow beads were made with natron. This was a chemical used by craftsmen in the Roman Empire to melt glass. The beads also have a distinctive hole in them, indicating a multi-layering technique, very predominant of that era. In this method, craftsmen ‘piled up layers of glass’ and quite often put a gold leaf between the layers. This discovery opens up a whole new set of questions on the influence of the Roman Empire and its extent.

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