Clive Bonsall

• Professor at University of Edinburgh

In this paper, we revisit the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in western Scotland and the links between early European farmers and middens in light of new aDNA, radio-carbon, and stable isotopic evidence. New carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic data for food sources (plant and animal remains) from a Mesolithic site are presented, and dietary FRUITS...

The Balkan Mesolithic was a regional manifestation of indigenous hunter-gatherers’ adaptations to profound ecological change between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the establishment of Neolithic farming systems across Europe. Mesolithic sites are unevenly distributed across the peninsula. In the Dinaric-Pindus mountains in the west, eviden...

Research into the Mesolithic has recently undergone important transformations, making it one of the most dynamic fields of archaeological research today. These changes are the result of a combination of factors: new and exciting discoveries, the impact of innovative scientific methods, and the introduction of fresh interpretative approaches. Situat...

We present the first ancient DNA data from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia (Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq), Cyprus, and the Northwestern Zagros, along with the first data from Neolithic Armenia. We show that these and neighboring populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and...

Literary and archaeological sources have preserved a rich history of Southern Europe and West Asia since the Bronze Age that can be complemented by genetics. Mycenaean period elites in Greece did not differ from the general population and included both people with some steppe ancestry and others, like the Griffin Warrior, without it. Similarly, peo...

In total, 175 obsidian artifacts from Late Neolithic (Tisza culture) contexts at the tell site of Gorzsa in southeast Hungary were analyzed using a portable XRF device and the results were compared with the corresponding measurements made on geological samples from known European obsidian sources. The data support the conclusion that most of the ob...

In this paper we re-evaluate the portable art from Mesolithic sites in the Iron Gates region. On the Romanian bank of the Danube art objects have been recovered from six sites: the rockshelter site of Cuina Turcului, Climente II cave and four open-air sites – Icoana, Veterani-Terasă, Ostrovul Banului and Schela Cladovei. In most cases the art was a...

The rise and fall of the Roman Empire was a socio-political process with enormous ramifications for human history. The Middle Danube was a crucial frontier and a crossroads for population and cultural movement. Here we present genome-wide data from 136 Balkan individuals dated to the 1st millennium CE. Despite extensive militarization and cultural...

The book refers to the various aspects of the Neolithic period in the Balkan Region.

The Mesolithic settlements on the left bank of the Danube in the Iron Gates have yielded numerous artefacts made of osseous materials. Products and sub-products of the chaîne opératoire are present, suggesting in situ manufacturing of the finished items. Among a restricted range of artefact types, the most characteristic ones are bevelled tools mad...

Lithic raw material provenance studies are important for reconstructing patterns of raw material procurement and exchange in prehistory. However, understanding this process requires the accurate characterisation of archaeological artefacts. This paper is based on a large amount of analytical data from our previous research and publications, augment...

Although marine resources are known to have been exploited by both foragers and early farmers in Scotland, the importance of seafood to the diets of Neolithic groups has been widely debated. Here we present paired stable isotope (δ13C and δ15N) and radiocarbon measurements on Early Neolithic human remains from Raschoille Cave in Oban. These are com...

Literary and archaeological sources have preserved a rich history of Southern Europe and West Asia since the Bronze Age that can be complemented by genetics. Mycenaean period elites in Greece did not differ from the general population and included both people with some steppe ancestry and others, like the Griffin Warrior, without it. Similarly, peo...

Our study offers a fresh insight into the Starčevo-Criș pottery from Schela Cladovei based on the application of computed tomography (CT) used to obtain cross-section images of both archaeological and experimental vessels. The pottery experiments were conducted in the summer of 2019 at Schela Cladovei (Romania), while the CT scans were performed at...

Literary and archaeological sources have preserved a rich history of Southern Europe and West Asia since the Bronze Age that can be complemented by genetics. Mycenaean period elites in Greece did not differ from the general population and included both people with some steppe ancestry and others, like the Griffin Warrior, without it. Similarly, peo...

We present the first ancient DNA data from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia (Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq), Cyprus, and the Northwestern Zagros, along with the first data from Neolithic Armenia. We show that these and neighboring populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and...

We present the first ancient DNA data from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia (Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq), Cyprus, and the Northwestern Zagros, along with the first data from Neolithic Armenia. We show that these and neighboring populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and...

Literary and archaeological sources have preserved a rich history of Southern Europe and West Asia since the Bronze Age that can be complemented by genetics. Mycenaean period elites in Greece did not differ from the general population and included both people with some steppe ancestry and others, like the Griffin Warrior, without it. Similarly, peo...

We present the first ancient DNA data from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia (Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq), Cyprus, and the Northwestern Zagros, along with the first data from Neolithic Armenia. We show that these and neighboring populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and...

Literary and archaeological sources have preserved a rich history of Southern Europe and West Asia since the Bronze Age that can be complemented by genetics. Mycenaean period elites in Greece did not differ from the general population and included both people with some steppe ancestry and others, like the Griffin Warrior, without it. Similarly, peo...

Located in southwestern Romania in the Iron Gates Gorges, Icoana was among the sites submerged foiiowing the building of the Iron Gates I dam and hydro-power station. Eight trenches were excavated with a total area of 91m2 and a maximum depth ofca. 3 m between 1967 and 1969. According to the AMS 14C dates, Icoana saw two occupations, one between ca...

Located in southwestern Romania in the Iron Gates Gorges, Icoana was among the sites submerged following the building of the Iron Gates I dam and hydro-power station. Eight trenches were excavated with a total area of 91m2 and a maximum depth of ca. 3 m between 1967 and 1969. According to the AMS 14C dates, Icoana saw two occupations, one between c...

Present-day people from England and Wales harbour more ancestry derived from Early European Farmers (EEF) than people of the Early Bronze Age¹. To understand this, we generated genome-wide data from 793 individuals, increasing data from the Middle to Late Bronze and Iron Age in Britain by 12-fold, and Western and Central Europe by 3.5-fold. Between...

Artefacts made from obsidian were recovered from Mesolithic and Early Neolithic sites in the Iron Gates section of the Lower Danube Valley during excavations in the 1960s. Archaeologists of the time disagreed over the likely provenance of the obsidian, variously attributing it to Carpathian, Aegean, or even ‘local’ sources. We present the results o...

This paper is focused on the various kinds of personal adornments that were used during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in the Iron Gates region (southwest Romania). We review how the adornments were used, based on an analysis of their morphology and use-wear, and attempt to identify the sequence of actions involved in their manufacture. We docu...

Exploring of some multilayer Early Neolithic settlements in the Low Don Basin and the Sea of Asov region dated about between 7200 and 4200 cal BC provided new data regarding the importance of the Caucasian route along the shore of the Black and Azov seas, possibly by sea. Especially in the earliest aceramic sites – shell mounds at Razdorskaya 2, Ma...

The paper focuses on small sculptural pendants representing different bird species of the Late Stone Age forest hunter-gatherers of the Russian Plain (c. 3500–2700 cal BC). They are supposed to have been frequently worn in everyday life, and their symbolic meaning might have been mostly connected mostly with totemism. A second type of finds, that o...

The Bulgarian prehistoric sequence is characterized by the use of particular raw materials in distinct ‘cultural’ contexts. The Karanovo I and II stages of the Early Neolithic (part of a supra-regional technocomplex in the Balkans) are recognisable by formal toolkits made of Balkan flint. The Chalcolithic period is famous for its superblades made o...

In this study we examine in detail the prehistoric personal adornments from Cuina Turcului rockshelter (Mehedinți County, Romania). Early Mesolithic ("Epipalaeolithic") and Early Neolithic assemblages are compared from the perspectives of context, typology and use-wear. Ornaments from the "Epipalaeolithic" horizons include shells of freshwater gast...

The diets of 85 individuals from 21 sites were modelled using FRUITS based on their bulk bone collagen C and N isotope ratio signatures. The sites, which occur in a range of environments, group into three distinct periods corresponding to the British ‘Late Upper Palaeolithic’, ‘EarlyMesolithic’ and ‘Late Mesolithic’, respectively. The FRUITS models...

Human skeletal remains of at least three individuals were unearthed during excavations at the Early Neolithic site of Grumăzeşti-Deleni in northeast Romania (Moldova region) between 1968 and 1978. They comprise the articulated skeleton of an adult buried in a crouched position (M1), and the disarticulated remains of another adult and a juvenile fou...

Portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (pXRF) was used to reveal the chemical signatures of 60 obsidian artefacts from two Early Neolithic sites in the Muntenia region of southern Romania-Uliești in Dâmbovița County and Măgura-Buduiasca in Teleorman County. The results show that the Starčevo-Criș communities at both sites used obsidian that origi...

This paper presents for the first time the results of a combination of petrographic, geochemical and organic residue analyses of early Neolithic ceramics from the Iron Gates region of the Danube basin. Eleven early Neolithic potsherds from Schela Cladovei (Romania) were analysed in detail. The results of the petrographic analysis show that the cera...

Personal ornaments (beads, pendants, rings and bracelets) made from various raw materials (shell, bone, tooth, stone, ceramic) have been recovered from a relatively small number of Early Neolithic sites in Southeast Europe. This paper reviews the evidence of the beads from Early Neolithic Romania and the neighbouring areas, with one specific bead t...

Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disapp...

Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disapp...

Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disapp...

The archaeological site of Williamson’s Moss, located in north-west England, was excavated in the 1980s as part of an investigation of the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age populations living around the estuary of the River Esk in Cumbria. Recovery of plant remains was generally low, but bulk sediment samples were collected from different conte...

Coastal shell middens, a prominent feature of the Mesolithic archaeological record of western Scotland, suggest a maritime economy based on fishing and shellfishing. Despite evidence for the importance of fish to diet, virtually nothing is known of the fishing methods practiced, although several “models” have been proposed. We tested these models b...

Excavations between 1973 and 1984 at an open-air site on the island of Ostrovul Corbului (Botul Cliuci) in the downstream area of the Iron Gates of the Danube revealed abundant remains of Mesolithic occupation. The investigations brought to light habitation structures (pit houses), hearths and burials, as well as rich lithic and osseous assemblages...

The spread of early farming across Europe from its origins in Southwest Asia was a culturally transformative process which took place over millennia. Within regions, the pace of the transition was probably related to the particular climatic and environmental conditions encountered, as well as the nature of localized hunter-gatherer and farmer inter...

The spread of early farming across Europe from its origins in Southwest Asia was a culturally transformative process which took place over millennia. Within regions, the pace of the transition was probably related to the particular climatic and environmental conditions encountered, as well as the nature of localized hunter–gatherer and farmer inter...

Supplementary information to Cramp et al. Regional diversity in subsistence among early farmers in Southeast Europe revealed by archaeological organic residues.

This article discusses archaeological and historical data on sturgeon (Acipenseridae family) in the Danube River with special emphasis on the great sturgeon (Acipenser huso Linnaeus,1758 syn. Huso huso Brandt, 1869). Having established the complementary nature of information offered by prehistoric and medieval fishbone finds and the written record...

Excavations between 1973 and 1984 at an open-air site on the island of Ostrovul Corbului (Botul Cliuci) in the downstream area of the Iron Gates of the Danube revealed abundant remains of Mesolithic occupation. The investigations brought to light habitation structures (pithouses), hearths and burials, as well as rich lithic and osseous assemblages...

Schela Cladovei is one of the most important Mesolithic–Neolithic sites in Southeast Europe. The range of archaeological materials recovered from this site in over five decades of archaeological investigation is considerable, yet very few details have been published. In this paper we review the osseous assemblage from the first three seasons of exc...

Personal ornaments, especially those made from the shells of marine mollusks and animal teeth, have been recovered from many Mesolithic sites across Europe. This paper reviews the evidence of personal ornaments from the Meso¬lithic of the Iron Gates, where such finds were identified in five sites on the Romanian bank: the cave and rock shelter site...

Portable X‐ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (pXRF) was used to reveal the chemical signatures of 75 obsidian artefacts from seven sites in the Satu Mare region, ranging in age from Early Neolithic (late Starčevo‐Criș culture) to Late Copper Age. The results reveal the origin of the obsidian to be the Carpathian 1 source area in eastern Slovakia, reinf...

The site of Grumăzești – Deleni (Neamț County) was excavated by Silvia Marinescu‐Bîlcu during the late 1960s and 1970s. The excavations unearthed the remains of an Early Neolithic (Starčevo‐Criș) settlement, as well as traces of occupation during the Bronze Age (Komariv and Noua cultures) and the 3rd–4th centuries AD. The excavator’s field notes me...

For decades archaeozoological reconstruction has been aimed at reconstructing animal keeping and herd management strategies from food remains recovered from prehistoric settlements. In spite of the increasing awareness of taphonomic loss and alarming examples of poor representation at documented historic sites, animal remains are still often discus...

Obsidian artefacts are numerous in the Upper Paleolithic sites of Northwest Romania. The use of obsidian begins during the Aurignacian and continues during the Gravettian, All the stages of the lithic reduction sequence are present. The obsidian tools are numerous in some sites. Non-destructive chemical analysis by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) was perf...

The Iron Gates section of the Lower Danube valley along the border between Romania and Serbia has an unparalleled record of Mesolithic and Early Neolithic settlement spanning the period from ca. 12,700 to 5600 cal BC. Over 50 cave and open-air sites were identified during archaeological surveys in advance of dam construction in the 1960s and 1980s,...

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/nature25738.

European farmers' first strides from the south The early spread of farmers across Europe has previously been thought to be part of a single migration event. David Reich and colleagues analyse genome-wide data from 225 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and the surrounding regions between 12000 and 500 BC. They analyse this in combination...

From around 2750 to 2500 BC, Bell Beaker pottery became widespread across western and central Europe, before it disappeared between 2200 and 1800 BC. The forces that propelled its expansion are a matter of long-standing debate, and there is support for both cultural diffusion and migration having a role in this process. Here we present genome-wide...

e Mesolithic site at Ostrovul Banului was investigated by Vasile Boroneant in 1966, prior to the building of the Iron Gates I hydroelectric dam. 227 items made of hard animal materials (in various stages of manufacturing) were the subject of the present research. Four categories of raw materials were identi ed: deer antler, long bone diaphyses, tee...

Here we report the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of human and faunal remains from two Bronze Age (Monteoru culture) sites near Buzău in Romania, in the eastern foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. The results for 54 humans from Sărata Monteoru and 10 from Cârlomăneşti indicate diets that were dominated by C3 terrestrial r...

Located in southwestern Romania in the Iron Gates Gorges, the Mesolithic site at Icoana was submerged during construction of the Iron Gates I dam and hydro-power station. Vasile Boroneanț briefly investigated the site from 1967 until it was completely flooded, in 1969. Based on recent AMS 14C dates, Icoana was occupied during the Middle Mesolithic...

We present δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S measurements on archaeological human and animal bone collagen samples from a shell midden dating to the Neolithic ca. 4000– 3500 cal BC, together with measurements on modern fish and shellfish. These data were used in conjunction with the Bayesian mixing model, Food Reconstruction Using Isotopic Transferred Signals (...

Details Beads, beadwork, and personal ornaments are made of diverse materials such as shell, bone, stones, minerals, and composite materials. Their exploration from geographical and chronological settings around the world offers a glimpse at some of the cutting edge research within the fast growing field of personal ornaments in humanities’ past....

Portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometry was used to obtain source determinations for 11 obsidian artefacts from five archaeological sites in Bulgaria. The results show that all the archaeological specimens can be linked to obsidian sources in the Carpathian Mountains in the border region between Hungary and Slovakia. Obsidian from the C2E s...

The transition from hunting and gathering to farming involved profound cultural and technological changes. In Western and Central Europe, these changes occurred rapidly and synchronously after the arrival of early farmers of Anatolian origin [1; 2 ; 3], who largely replaced the local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers [1; 4; 5 ; 6]. Further east, in the B...

Data S1. Dataset of Ancient Samples Used for Population Genetic Analyses, Related to Figures 1, 2, and S3 and STAR Methods

Data S2. Results of the Outgroup f3 Statistics for the Romanian Genomes, Related to Figures 2 and S3 and STAR Methods

Molluscan assemblages recovered from archaeological sites can potentially provide a wealth of information about past environment and can offer an opportunity to investigate the human use of shells and shellfish. However, there are many practical and theoretical problems associated with the recovery, identification, quantification and interpretation...

The transition from hunting and gathering to farming involved profound cultural and technological changes. In Western and Central Europe, these changes occurred rapidly and synchronously after the arrival of early farmers of Anatolian origin [1, 2, 3], who largely replaced the local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers [1, 4, 5, 6]. Further east, in the Bal...

Deathways at Lepenski Vir: Patterns in mortuary practice. Excavations of Dragoslav Srejović, by Dušan Borić , 2016. Belgrade: Serbian Archaeological Society; ISBN 978-86-80094-03-08 hardback £65.00 & $79.00; xiii + 565 pp., 208 figs., 14 tables - Clive Bonsall

Farming was first introduced to southeastern Europe in the mid-7th millennium BCE - brought by migrants from Anatolia who settled in the region before spreading throughout Europe. However, the dynamics of the interaction between the first farmers and the indigenous hunter-gatherers remain poorly understood because of the near absence of ancient DNA...