Researchers agree that domesticated plants were introduced into southeast Europe from southwest Asia as a part of a Neolithic "package," which included domesticated animals and artifacts typical of farming communities. It is commonly believed that this package reached inland areas of the Balkans by ∼6200 calibrated (cal.) BC or later. Our analysis of the starch record entrapped in dental calcul...

Mesolithic populations throughout Europe used diverse resource exploitation strategies that focused heavily on collecting and hunting wild prey. Between 5500 and 4200 cal BC, agriculturalists migrated into northwestern Europe bringing a suite of Neolithic technologies including domesticated animals. Here we investigate to what extent Mesolithic Ertebølle communities in northern Germany had acce...

In this paper we compare the prevalence of osteoarthritis (OA) of hip and knee joints on skeletons series and relations between them. OA was registered from 166 individuals of Neolithic and protohistorical periods. Between Neolithic and Iron Age periods the ratio [hip OA/ knee OA] increases with diminution of knee OA prevalence; the ratio [patello-femoral OA / tibio-femoral OA] rather tends to ...

Two alternative models have been proposed to explain the spread of agriculture in Europe during the Neolithic period. The demic diffusion model postulates the spreading of farmers from the Middle East along a Southeast to Northeast axis. Conversely, the cultural diffusion model assumes transmission of agricultural techniques without substantial movements of people. Support for the demic model d...

one of the interdisciplinary approaches which recently had a key role in resolving of archaeological issues, especially domestication process, was archaeogenetics. caprines were domesticated in the early neolithic period and their domestication was a major part of the process that led to the invention of agriculture. since goat has had a key role in subsistence economy of human societies in dif...

The chronology of the southeast Italian Neolithic may appear a rather over-worked subject, since there are several relatively recent treatments of various aspects (Alexander 2005; Skeates 2000; 2003), as well as a range of earlier articles (Pluciennik 1994; 1997; Sargent 1985; Skeates 1994; Whitehouse 1994: 86–90). It therefore may seem not to need additional attention now. Nonetheless, ‘rethin...

Resum In the frame of the research project undertaken in the site of La Draga, an Early Neolithic (ca. 5,300-4,800 cal BC) pile-dwelling settlement located at the North Eastern of the Iberian Peninsula, we are developing a serious game that recreates the life of a Neolithic community with the purpose of dissemination, entertainment and learning. The videogame has tried to provide the most relia...

Resum In the frame of the research project undertaken in the site of La Draga, an Early Neolithic (ca. 5,300-4,800 cal BC) pile-dwelling settlement located at the North Eastern of the Iberian Peninsula, we are developing a serious game that recreates the life of a Neolithic community with the purpose of dissemination, entertainment and learning. The videogame has tried to provide the most relia...

The Neolithic Revolution began 11,000 years ago in the Near East and preceded a westward migration into Europe of distinctive cultural groups and their agricultural economies, including domesticated animals and plants. Despite decades of research, no consensus has emerged about the extent of admixture between the indigenous and exotic populations or the degree to which the appearance of specifi...

OBJECTIVES The C282Y allele is the major cause of hemochromatosis as a result of excessive iron absorption. The mutation arose in continental Europe no earlier than 6,000 years ago, coinciding with the arrival of the Neolithic agricultural revolution. Here we hypothesize that this new Neolithic diet, which originated in the sunny warm and dry climates of the Middle East, was carried by migratin...