Journal of Archaeological Science doi:10.1016/j.jas.2012.08.037
Collective burials among agro-pastoral societies in later
Neolithic Germany: Perspectives from ancient DNA Esther J. Lee
et al. Ancient DNA research has focused on the genetic patterns
of the earliest farmers during the European Neolithic,
especially with regards to the demographic changes in the
transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture. However,
genetic data is relatively lacking after this earliest
transition period, when societies had fully adapted to new
agrarian lifestyles specific to their local environment. During
the later central European Neolithic (ca. 3600 - 2800 cal BC),
large-scale collective burials and monumental architecture
appeared within the landscape of many agricultural societies.
This phenomenon has been argued to represent the emergence of a
“collective” identity. With the aim of exploring genetic-based
relations among individuals collectively buried, we obtained
human skeletal remains of nearly 200 individuals