PIGS, PEOPLE & THE NEOLITHISATION OF EUROPE

农业的发明和在世界范围内的传播可能是人类历史上最重要的事件之一。它的后果是激烈而深远的，它将继续塑造我们今天和未来的生活。尽管进行了多年的研究，考古学家和生物学家仍然不知道它为什么发生，在哪里发生，甚至是如何发生的，以及它对人类的早期影响是什么。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。早期家畜及其野生祖先的骨头通常是从考古遗址中挖掘出来的，它们为许多未解之谜提供了重要线索。新的科学技术可以从这些古老的骨头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，以及在农民迁移到新地区时追踪其传播的新方法。很明显，农业是由最早的农民从它的发源地近东迁移到欧洲的。它从东向西传播了6500年，不同的新石器文化穿过并占据了不同的地区。随着农民们移动他们的家畜和植物。然而，欧洲并非一片空旷。它已经被人类群体所占据，他们通过狩猎和采集生存了数千年。在欧洲也有一些近东人已经驯化的野生动物（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能完全理解的，这也是我们在这个重大研究项目中要探索的。我们计划提出几个简单的问题：我们能否利用这些早期引进的家养动物（在这里是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化了吗？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。这两种方法都集中在猪的牙齿上，因为牙齿不仅是考古背景下保存最好的元素，也是确定野生或家养状态的最可靠的骨骼部分。我们将首先采用几何形态计量学，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，将其与现代标本的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基因分析的数据，并采用传统的考古方法，我们不仅可以回答与起源和传播路线有关的问题，还可以收集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猪驯化事件是否反映在猪牙齿的形状上。这些数据将使我们能够通过首先确定哪些文化驯养猪来评估猪驯化发生的过程；其次，通过确定家猪的贸易/移动对其他地区野猪可能的后续驯化的影响程度。回答这些问题将有助于我们深入了解人类驯养动物的方式，这是现代文明建立的基石。

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.