Corina Knipper

Curt Engelhorn Zentrum Archäometrie | CEZ Archäometrie

Significance Paleogenetic and isotope data from human remains shed new light on residential rules revealing patrilocality and high female mobility in European prehistory. We show the crucial role of this institution and its impact on the transformation of population compositions over several hundred years. Evidence for an epoch-transgressing matern...

The late Iron Age (150–80 BC) proto-urban site of Basel-Gasfabrik, Switzerland, yielded numerous human skeletal remains, with individuals of all ages and both sexes being found in two cemeteries and in various features of the settlement itself. About 200 inhumations and two cremation burials as well as isolated skulls and bones attest to complex mo...

The analysis of the human remains from the megalithic tomb at Alto de Reinoso represents the widest integrative study of a Neolithic collective burial in Spain. Combining archaeology, osteology, molecular genetics and stable isotope analysis (87Sr/86Sr, δ15N, δ13C) it provides a wealth of information on the minimum number of individuals, age, sex,...

Objectives: Inhumations in so-called settlement pits and multiple interments are subordinate burial practices of the Early Bronze Age Unetice culture in central Germany (2200–1700/1650 BC). The majority of the Unetice population was entombed as single inhumations in rectangular grave pits with a normative position of the body. The goal of the study...

Food production provoked social inequality in agricultural societies. Starting in the European late Neolithic, conspicuously equipped inhumations with elaborate grave architecture indicated representatives of local and possibly regional elites. However, burials are always shaped by a complex combination of the desires of the deceased and of the ber...

The early Iron Age (800 to 450 BCE) in France, Germany and Switzerland, known as the ‘West-Hallstattkreis’, stands out as featuring the earliest evidence for supra-regional organization north of the Alps. Often referred to as ‘early Celtic’, suggesting tentative connections to later cultural phenomena, its societal and population structure remain e...

From ad 567–568, at the onset of the Avar period, populations from the Eurasian Steppe settled in the Carpathian Basin for approximately 250 years¹. Extensive sampling for archaeogenomics (424 individuals) and isotopes, combined with archaeological, anthropological and historical contextualization of four Avar-period cemeteries, allowed for a detai...

With the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in Central Europe ~ 2200 BC, a regional and supra-regional hierarchical social organization emerged with few individuals in positions of power (chiefs), set apart by rich graves with extensive burial constructions. However, the social organization and stratification within the majority of people, who repre...

This paper explores the potential of regional archaeological survey for understanding Neolithic land use beyond and between intensively investigated settlement areas in southwestern Germany. We integrate survey data from two long-term regional projects, comparing natural environments, research histories, and site distributions in the Upper Swabian...

In this paper, we investigate the Scandinavian Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of Kinnekulle in southwestern Sweden. The above-mentioned periods in the study area are poorly understood and the archaeological record consists of a few stray finds and a concentration of 20 gallery graves. This study focuses on three of the gallery graves where com...

Few parts of Europe witnessed as many population shifts as the Middle Danube region between 400-900 CE. In this macro-region, Pannonians, Romans, Goths, Gepids, Longobards, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs and many other groups came, settled and/or continued their migration or expansion towards other regions of Europe. Several very different social models coe...

Radiocarbon dating is generally the first choice to date younger Upper Pleistocene organic material. In caves, skeletal remains of animals or humans are often the only preserved datable finds. Routinely, collagen is extracted from bones for radiocarbon dating as it does not readily exchange carbon with its surrounding. However, collagen can also de...

Being able to digest milk sugar beyond the age of weaning is a rather new trait in humans. The calculated age of the responsible mutations largely coincides with the introduction of dairy farming. Recent European populations exhibit a gradient of high levels of lactose tolerance in the north and lower numbers in the south. Lactase persistence is be...

Significance The bacterium Yersinia pestis has caused numerous historically documented outbreaks of plague and research using ancient DNA could demonstrate that it already affected human populations during the Neolithic. However, the pathogen’s genetic diversity, geographic spread, and transmission dynamics during this early period of Y. pestis evo...

Using stable carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope ratios of caprine tooth enamel from the Aeneolithic site of Monjukli Depe in southern Turkmenistan, this study investigates diet and seasonal movement of livestock. The carbon isotope profiles of some of the sequentially sampled third molars indicate a supply of C3-plant-based forage year round,...

The study of food consumption during the colonial period in Panama Viejo traditionally has been based on chronicles and archival documentation. The present analysis reassesses the historical information about diet in this colonial enclave based on microbotanical, isotopic and bioanthropological evidence obtained from the excavations within and outs...

In Prague-Miškovice, a cemetery of the Únětice culture (UC) with a total of 44 graves was excavated between 1999 und 2001. The C14 dates range across the entire course of Central Europe’s Early Bronze Age – from the proto-Únětice phase to the “post-classical” phase of the UC. The high point of the mortuary activities occurred between 2000 and 1750...

Analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes permits a dietary reconstruction of humans and animals in the past. A large burial mound (kurgan) of ìburial mound group 3î was excavated near the town of Ipatovo, Stavropol region, Russia, in 1998/99. Of the 195 graves recorded in Kurgan 2, 34 date to the Bronze Age, i.e., to the time period from the...

In this paper, we investigate population dynamics in the Scandinavian Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in southwestern Sweden. Human mobility patterns in Falbygden were studied by applying strontium isotope analysis combined with archaeological and bioarchaeological data, including mtDNA and sex assessment on a large dataset encompassing 141 individu...

The recently enriched genomic history of Indigenous groups in the Americas is still meager concerning continental Central America. Here, we report ten pre-Hispanic (plus two early colonial) genomes and 84 genome-wide profiles from seven groups presently living in Panama. Our analyses reveal that pre-Hispanic demographic events contributed to the ex...

Background The prevalence of hard tissue formations in the dental pulp varies considerably. Beside ageing processes and irritations of the dental pulp, etiological associations with cardiovascular disease and dietary habits have been discussed, which are of particular research interest. The aim of this pilot study is to provide new insights on stru...

The recently enriched genomic history of Indigenous groups in the Americas is still meagre concerning continental Central America. Here, we report ten pre-Hispanic (plus two early colonial) genomes and 84 genome-wide profiles from seven groups presently living in Panama. Our analyses reveal that pre-Hispanic demographic changes and isolation events...

The flanks of the Caucasus Mountains and the steppe landscape to their north offered highly productive grasslands for Bronze Age herders and their flocks of sheep, goat, and cattle. While the archaeological evidence points to a largely pastoral lifestyle, knowledge regarding the general composition of human diets and their variation across landscap...

Intentional dental modification is a widespread practice in both ancient and modern populations. In Panama, the modern practice is restricted to the Ngäbe indigenous people inhabiting the western provinces. Several researchers have posited that Ngäbe dental modification evidences cultural transfer of African origin due to the absence of post-contac...

The decline of the Roman rule caused significant political instability and led to the emergence of various ‘Barbarian’ powers. While the names of the involved groups appeared in written sources, it is largely unknown how these changes affected the daily lives of the people during the 5th century AD. Did late Roman traditions persist, did new custom...

The El Argar society of the Bronze Age in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula (2200–1550 cal BCE) was among the first complex societies in Europe. Its economy was based on cereal cultivation and metallurgy, it was organized hierarchically, and successively expanded its territory. Most of the monumentally fortified settlements lay on steeply slop...

In the last few decades, the discovery of large ditched enclosures in Iberia has revealed the diversity and complexity of deposition and manipulation of human bone remains. Alongside traditional ritual burials (mainly megalithic tombs and hypogea), fragmented and scattered human bones mixed with other kinds of material culture began to appear in ma...

Violence seems deeply rooted in human nature and an endemic potential for such is today frequently associated with differing ethnic, religious or socio-economic backgrounds. Ethnic nepotism is believed to be one of the main causes of inter-group violence in multi-ethnic societies. At the site of Els Trocs in the Spanish Pyrenees, rivalling groups o...

The paper is based on findings and finds from the Middle Copper Age Balaton-Lasinja culture were discovered at Keszthely-Fenékpuszta, Pusztaszentegyháza site in June, 2000. Based on the results of archaeological, anthropological, and ancient DNA analyses these pits can be evaluated as archaeological records for a previously unknown secondary mortua...

Ancient DNA informs on past cultures Archaeology has used analysis of the artifacts and remains of people to uncover their past behaviors and to infer their cultural practices. However, establishing genetic relationships has only recently become possible. Mittnik et al. examined the kinship and inheritance of the remains of people from the German L...

In 2016, an extraordinary burial of a young adult individual was discovered at the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB, 7,500–6,900 BCE) settlement of Baʻja in southern Jordan. This burial has exceptional grave goods and an elaborate grave construction. It suggests discussing anew reconstructions of early Neolithic social structures. In this articl...

Archaeogenetic studies have described the formation of Eurasian ‘steppe ancestry’ as a mixture of Eastern and Caucasus hunter-gatherers. However, it remains unclear when and where this ancestry arose and whether it was related to a horizon of cultural innovations in the 4th millennium BCE that subsequently facilitated the advance of pastoral societ...

The inland area of southwestern Sweden is well known for its well-preserved archaeological animal and human remains dating back to the Mesolithic and Neolithic (10000–4000 and 4000–1700 BC). They allow application of multiple bioarchaeological methods, giving insights into various and complementary aspects of prehistoric human life, as well as econ...

Sample information, Excel file. (XLSX)

Supplementary information: Geological supplementary information, A comparison of 87Sr/86Sr values in fauna and water samples, Strontium isotope ratios in samples from different Precambrian subunits, Strontium isotope ratios in samples from different sedimentary lithologies. (DOCX)

This Quaternary International Special Issue comprises contributions presented in the session “Casting a glance over the mountain – multiproxy approaches to the understanding of vertical mobility” at the Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) in Glasgow in September 2015. In the framework of this session, archaeologists, archaeo...

The impact of human mobility on the northern European urban populations during the Viking and Early Middle Ages and its repercussions in Scandinavia itself are still largely unexplored. Our study of the demographics in the final phase of the Viking era is the first comprehensive multidisciplinary investigation that includes genetics, isotopes, arch...

Stable isotope analysis of crop remains complements conventional isotope analysis of human and faunal bones, permitting a more holistic insight into subsistence practices in the past. Here, we demonstrate the insights that can be gained from crop isotope analysis by synthesising crop, faunal and human isotopic data from Linearbandkeramik villages,...

The later phase of the Central European Early Neolithic witnessed a rise in collective lethal violence to a level undocumented up to this date. This is evidenced by repeated massacres of settled communities of the Linearbandkeramik (ca. 5600-4900 cal BC), the first full farming culture in this area. Skeletal remains of several dozen victims of this...

Archaeogenetic studies have described the formation of Eurasian 'steppe ancestry' as a mixture of Eastern and Caucasus hunter-gatherers. However, it remains unclear when and where this ancestry arose and whether it was related to a horizon of cultural innovations in the 4th millennium BCE that subsequently facilitated the advance of pastoral societ...

Investigation of human diet during the Neolithic has often been limited to a few archaeological cultures or single sites. In order to provide insight into the development of human food consumption and husbandry strategies, our study explores bone collagen carbon and nitrogen isotope data from 466 human and 105 faunal individuals from 26 sites in ce...

Frequency distribution of δ13C and δ15N in ‰ of human bone collagen. Curve progressions display normal distribution (n = 466). (TIF)

Summary of human samples investigated. The Mittelelbe-Saale sites are listed in chronological order, while multi-phase sites are listed numerous times. Basic information is given on geographic location, the archaeological context of the investigated individuals, individual data and isotopic data. (XLSX)

Summary of faunal samples investigated. The Middle Elbe-Saale sites are listed in chronological order, while multi-phase sites are listed numerous times. Individual data of each faunal sample (ID, feature, culture, species) and isotopic data (skeletal element, collagen yield, % C, % N, C/N atomic, δ13C, δ15N) are given. For additional information o...

Summary of animal samples excluded for quality reasons. (XLSX)

δ15N and δ13C measurements in animals stratified by species (above) and period (below). Bars display average values. (TIF)

Estimated interquartile ranges of δ15N (above) and δ13C values (below) of human samples with 95% confidence intervals for each archaeological culture. The numbers are shown graphically and numerically. P-values refer to a test for trend over time. (TIF)

Summary of human samples excluded for quality reasons. (XLSX)

Summary of archaeological information. Overview of archaeological cultures of the Middle Elbe-Saale Region. Chronological period, name of culture, abbreviation, dating and distribution are listed as well as burial and settlement practices, further information and references. (XLSX)

Distribution of δ13C and δ15N in ‰ in different age groups. A = overall sample, B = archaeological periods. Small lines mark single samples, points mark outliers. (TIF)

Basel-Gasfabrik (Switzerland) comprises an extensive La Tène (chiefly Lt D, 150–80 BCE) settlement and two associated cemeteries at which strontium (87Sr/86Sr) isotope analysis of human and animal teeth investigated regional and supra-regional contacts. The interpretation of the analytic data, however, requires information on the isotopic baseline...

The Basel-Gasfabrik site (Switzerland) is among the largest and best investigated proto-urban centres of the La Tène period (chiefly La Tène C2/D1; 200/150–80 BCE). Excavations revealed evidence of an urban lifestyle, crafts production as well as a multitude of imported goods. Human skeletal remains were recovered both from two cemeteries and from...

This article presents the results of an interdisciplinary study combining archaeology, osteology, and stable isotope analyses. The geological conditions and richness of megalithic graves in Falbygden is suitable for studies of Neolithic human remains. Nevertheless, the Late Neolithic period (2350-1700 BC) is poorly investigated. This paper explores...