PIGS, PEOPLE & THE NEOLITHISATION OF EUROPE

农业的发明和在世界各地的传播可能是人类历史上最重要的事件之一。它的后果是巨大而深远的，它继续塑造着我们今天和未来的存在。尽管进行了多年的研究，考古学家和生物学家仍然对它为什么、在哪里、甚至是如何发生，以及它对人类的早期影响知之甚少。它是理解人类文明的主要钥匙之一，同时也为研究进化变化提供了一个理想的模型。尽管在这一领域进行了数十年的研究，但有关早期农业起源和传播所涉及的生物和文化过程的基本问题在很大程度上仍未得到解决。早期家养动物及其野生祖先的骨骼通常是从考古遗址挖掘出来的，它们掌握着许多悬而未决的问题的重要线索。新的科学技术可以从这些古老的骨骼中探索古老的遗传信号，现在开始为驯化过程本身的生物学提供独特的见解，以及随着农民转移到新的地区追踪其传播的新方法。很明显，农业是由最早从近东迁徙过来的农民传入欧洲的。它从东到西传播了6500多年，不同的新石器时代文化穿过并占据了不同的地区。随着农民的迁徙，他们的家畜和植物。然而，欧洲并不是一片空旷的风景。它已经被人类群体占领，数千年来他们通过狩猎和采集生存下来。在欧洲还有一些近东人已经驯养的野生动物物种(例如猪和牛)。早期农民、土著猎人和他们所遇到的新环境之间相互作用的本质是我们不完全了解的，也是我们在这个重大研究项目中旨在探索的。我们计划问几个简单的问题：我们能否使用这些早期引进的家养动物(在这种情况下，我们已经详细研究过的猪)来追踪早期农民穿越欧洲的具体路线？我们能看看欧洲的野猪当时是否被驯养了吗？我们将使用两种不同的方法来研究新石器时代遗址的古代猪遗骸。这两种方法都侧重于猪的牙齿，因为牙齿不仅是考古背景下保存最完好的元素，而且也是确定野生或家养状态的骨骼中最可靠的部分。我们将首先使用几何形态测量学，这是一种复杂的形状分析技术，可以评估牙齿的形状，并可以告诉我们驯化的程度，以及不同个体的亲缘关系。其次，我们将从牙齿中提取DNA，与现代标本中的DNA进行比较，可以帮助我们了解家猪的进化关系和地理起源。通过对比牙齿形状和遗传分析的数据，并采用传统的考古学方法，我们不仅将回答与起源和传播路线有关的问题，而且还将收集对人类传播和猪驯化的其他方面的见解。例如，我们将能够回答来自不同野生祖先的独立的猪驯化事件是否反映在猪的牙齿形状上。这些数据将使我们能够评估猪的驯化过程，首先确定哪些文化驯化了猪；其次确定了家猪的贸易/流动对其他地区野猪可能随后的驯化的影响程度。回答这些问题将提供对人类获得驯养动物的方式的洞察，驯养动物是现代文明建立在基础上的基石。

The invention and spread of farming around the world was perhaps one of the most important events in human history. Its consequences were drastic and far reaching, and it continues to shape our own existence today and in the future. Despite many years of study, archaeologists and biologists still have little idea of why, where or even how it occurred, and what were its early consequences for humankind. It is one of the principal keys to understanding human civilization and, at the same time, provides an ideal model to study evolutionary change. Despite decades of research in this field, fundamental questions about the biological and cultural processes involved in the origins and spread of early farming remain largely unresolved. The bones of early domestic animals and their wild ancestors are commonly dug up from archaeological sites and they hold important clues to many of the unanswered questions. New scientific techniques, which can explore ancient genetic signals from these ancient bones, are now beginning to provide unique insights into the biology of the domestication process itself, as well as new ways of tracking its spread as farmers moved into new areas. It is clear that agriculture was introduced to Europe by the earliest farmers moving from the Near East where it began. It spread from East to west over 6,500 years, with different Neolithic cultures moving through and occupying different regions. With the farmers moved their domestic animals and plants. However, Europe was not an empty landscape. It was already occupied by human groups, who for thousands of years had survived through hunting and gathering. Also present in Europe were some of the same wild animal species that people in the Near East had already domesticated (for example pigs and cattle). The nature of the interaction between the early farmers, indigenous hunters and the new environments they encountered is something we don't fully understand and is something we aim to explore in this major research project. We plan to ask several simple questions: Can we use these early introduced domesticated animals (in this case pigs which we have already studied in detail) to track the specific routes taken by early farmers through Europe? Can we see if wild boar in Europe were then domesticated? We will use two different methods to study ancient pig remains from Neolithic sites. Both methods focus on pig teeth, as teeth are not only the best preserved element in an archaeological context, but also the most reliable portion of the skeleton for determining wild or domestic status. We will firstly employ geometric morphometrics, a sophisticated shape analysis technique that assesses dental shapes and can tell us about the degree of domestication, as well as the relatedness of different individuals. Secondly, we will extract DNA from the teeth, which, when compared with DNA from modern specimens, can inform our understanding of evolutionary relationships and geographic origins of domestic pigs. By contrasting the data from both the tooth shape and genetic analyses, and by employing traditional archaeological methods we will not only answer questions related to origins and dispersal routes, but also glean insights into other aspects of human dispersal and pig domestication. For example, we will be able to answer whether independent pig domestication events from different wild ancestors are reflected in the shape of the pig's teeth. The data will allow us to assess the process by which pig domestication took place by firstly identifying which cultures domesticated pigs; and secondly by identifying the degree to which trade/movement of domestic pigs influenced possible subsequent domestications of other regional wild boar. Answering these questions will provide insights into the way humans acquired domesticated animals, the bedrock upon which modern civilization has been built.