Four thousand years ago, the Early Bronze Age farmers of southern Germany had no Homer to chronicle their lives—but a detailed picture of their social structure emerged last year from a remarkable study. ScienceMagArchives
Four thousand years ago, the Early Bronze Age farmers of southern Germany had no Homer to chronicle their marriages, travails, and family fortunes. But a detailed picture of their social structure has now emerged from a remarkable new study. By combining evidence from DNA, artifacts, and chemical clues in teeth, an interdisciplinary team unraveled relationships and inheritance patterns in several generations of high-ranking families buried in cemeteries on their farmsteads.
The researchers worked with remains and grave goods excavated more than 20 years ago, when land along the Lech River south of Augsburg was dug up to build a housing development. Radiocarbon dates showed the farmers lived between 4750 years ago and 3300 years ago. Mittnik was working in the lab of Johannes Krause at MPI, and she and her colleagues analyzed DNA across the genomes of 104 people buried on the farmsteads.
One-third of the women were also buried with great wealth—elaborate copper head-dresses, thick bronze leg rings, and decorated copper pins. They were outsiders, however. Their DNA set them apart from others in the burials, and strontium isotopes in their teeth, which reflect minerals in the water they drank, show they were born and lived until adolescence far from the Lech River.
Bronze Age princely burials have long signaled social inequality. But the organization of these societies remained"rather vague," Stockhammer says. By combining archaeology with DNA data on family ties, the new study sharpened the picture. The data show, for example, that brothers were buried with equally rich grave goods, indicating that all sons, not just the eldest, inherited wealth. Related men kept wealth in the family for four to five generations.
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