Human Migration in Early Neolithic Europe

在国家科学基金会的支持下，T博士。道格拉斯普莱斯和R.亚历山大本特利将继续他们对中欧最早的农民的考古骨骼的分析。他们将试图区分两种解释欧洲农业出现的假设：实际人口的传播与思想在基本上固定的群体中的传播。由于农业在中欧突然出现，并伴随着一系列其他文化项目，如独特的陶瓷风格，许多考古学家认为这是人类迁徙的证据。然而，其他研究人员指出，人类具有适应性，可以接受新的行为模式，而且可能是思想而不是人在移动。为了在这些选项中做出选择，普莱斯博士和本特利博士将继续检查相关人群骨骼中的同位素值。骨骼和牙齿中锶的两种同位素的比例提供了一个人生活的地质环境的记录。由于骨组织在人的一生中不断更换，而牙齿的竞争是在青春期开始的，因此测量骨骼和牙齿之间锶同位素比率的差异可以识别移民。移民牙齿中的外来信号可以根据区域地质学追踪到可能的起源地区。在他们迄今为止的研究中，分析表明，两种模型的混合最能解释骨骼数据。这表明，最初很可能是少数移民将农业带到了欧洲，但欧洲土著人的采用也发挥了重要作用。为了改进这些初步发现，研究小组将把分析扩展到更多的骨骼。为了创建锶和铅同位素特征的基线“地图”，研究人员将分析从德国西南部和法国东部邻近研究区域的不同地质省份收集的考古动物牙齿。在此基础上，他们希望确定移民的原籍地。这项研究是重要的，原因有几个。它将提供一个重要的时间段和开创性的事件在欧洲史前的洞察力。它将阐明推动文化变革的基本过程，并有助于开发一种可能适用于世界许多地区广泛考古问题的分析工具

With National Science Foundation support Drs. T. Douglas Price and R. Alexander Bentley will continue their analysis of archaeological skeletons of the earliest farmers in Central Europe. They will attempt to distinguish between two hypotheses which account for the appearance of agriculture in Europe: the spread of actual populations vs. the spread of ideas across essentially immobile groups. Because agriculture appears suddenly in Central Europe and is accompanied by a suite of other cultural items such as distinctive ceramic styles, many archaeologists have accepted this as evidence of human migration. Other researchers however have noted that humans are adaptable, can accept new modes of behavior and that it may have been ideas rather than people which moved. To select between these options Drs Price and Bentley will continue their examination of isotope values in skeletons from relevant populations. The ratio of two isotopes of strontium in bones and teeth provides a record of the geological environment in which the person lived. Since bone tissue is replaced continually over an individual's lifetime while the competition of teeth is set at adolescence, a measured difference in the strontium isotope ratio between bones and teeth can identify an immigrant. The foreign signal in an immigrant's tooth can then be traced to a likely region of origin based on regional geology. In their research to date, analyses have indicated that a mixture of the two models best explains the skeletal data. These suggest that most likely a small number of migrants may have initially brought farming into Europe, but its adoption by indigenous Europeans also played a major role. To improve on these preliminary finding the team will expand the analysis to a larger number of skeletons. In order to create a baseline "map" of strontium and also lead isotope signatures, the researchers will analyze archaeological animal teeth collected from different geological provinces in regions adjacent to the study area in southwestern Germany and eastern France. On this basis they hope to identify immigrants' points of origin.This research is important for several reasons. It will provide insight into an important time period and seminal event in European prehistory. It will shed light on the basic processes which drive culture change and help to develop an analytic tool potentially applicable to a wide array of archaeological questions in many parts of the world