Human interactions during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Western Europe:The dual perspectives of cultural and biological exchanges

考古研究表明，新石器时代的传播在到达欧洲西部时发生了更复杂的转变。可以想象，西欧新石器时代扩张的两条主要“流”（即多瑙河和地中海流）的交汇，以及与本土的中石器时代社会的相遇，可能创造了这种镶嵌式的多样性模式，就像在物质文化中看到的那样。欧洲西部新石器时代的考古学描绘了一幅从中石器时代到新石器时代晚期（包括地区差异）相互作用和交换的高度复杂的画面，并在文化层面上得到了很好的描述，但迄今为止还没有遗传数据来讨论生物相互作用。对于中欧更东部和北部的地区，近年来已经实现了这一目标，令人惊讶的结果是，尽管有大量的证据表明相互之间的物质交换，但进入的群体具有明显的近东文化和遗传背景，至少在两千年内与当地的狩猎采集者很少或没有生物接触。这种设想现在需要用来自西欧的证据来检验。我们的项目目标是一个关键地区，包括现代法国、德国西部、瑞士和意大利，以揭示新石器时代人类群体之间文化和生物相互作用的复杂性和可变性。该地区非常适合研究史前人类互动问题，因为它包含了(i)中欧早期农业社区（多瑙河路线）与法国南部早期农业社区（地中海路线）的融合，以及（ii）与土著晚期狩猎采集者（HG）的各种形式的互动。该项目的一项主要任务是在尽可能高的分辨率下，调查类型学衍生的实体在多大程度上代表了遗传上可区分的人类群体。我们的方法是第一个结合考古和遗传调查研究在西欧多国水平。我们将利用关键遗址的新数据和整个研究区域考古文化/实体分布的详细信息来补充现有数据库，以巩固考古背景。我们还将从各种地理和文化背景中生成西欧中石器时代和新石器时代个体的第一个基因组数据。然后，收集的多学科数据将允许通过数学模拟研究对文化/生物接触、交换模式和人口模型进行首次直接测试。该项目将直接受益于法国和德国新石器时代的考古学家和人类学家以及人口遗传学家之间的合作。法德合作保证了人类aDNA数据的详细背景化，并将产生对欧洲西部新石器时代过程的精确理解。

Archaeological research shows that the dispersal of the Neolithic took a more complex turn when reaching the western parts of Europe. It is conceivable that the concurrence of the two main 'streams' of the West European Neolithic expansion (i.e. the Danubian and Mediterranean stream) and encounters with autochthonous Mesolithic societies may have created this mosaic pattern of diversity as it is seen in the material culture. The archaeology of Neolithic Western (W) Europe paints a highly complex picture of interaction and exchange from the Mesolithic to the Late Neolithic (including regional variability) and has been well described at the cultural level, but to date no genetic data is available to discuss biological interaction. For the more easterly and northern regions of Central Europe this has been achieved in recent years with the surprising result that incoming groups had a clear Near Eastern cultural and genetic background and very little or no biological contact with indigenous hunter-gatherers for at least two millennia, despite considerable evidence of mutual material exchange. This scenario now needs to be tested against the evidence from W Europe. Our project targets a key region that includes modern-day France, western Germany, Switzerland and Italy, to unravel the complexity and variability in cultural and biological interactions between human groups during the Neolithic period. This region is uniquely suited to study questions of human interaction in prehistory, as it encompasses both (i) the convergence of early farming communities from Central Europe (Danubian route) with those from southern France (Mediterranean route), and (ii) the various forms of interaction with indigenous late hunter-gatherers (HG). A major task of the project will be to investigate how far the typologically derived entities represent genetically distinguishable human groups, at the best possible level of resolution. Our approach is the first to combine archaeological and genetic survey studies at multi-national level in W Europe. We will complement existing databases with new data from key sites and detailed information about the distribution of archaeological cultures/entities for the entire study area to consolidate the archaeological background. We will also generate the first genomic data from western European Mesolithic and Neolithic individuals from a wide variety of geographical and cultural contexts. The multidisciplinary data gathered will then permit the first direct test of cultural/biological contacts, modes of exchange, and demographic models through mathematical simulation studies. The project will benefit directly from collaborations between expert archaeologists and anthropologists of the French and German Neolithic and population geneticists. The French-German collaboration guarantees a detailed contextualisation of the human aDNA data and will generate a refined understanding of the Neolithisation process in W Europe.