News

A large mass grave from the Early Iron Age indicates selective violence towards women and children in the Carpathian Basin

  • Haas, J. The Anthropology of War (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990).

  • Molloy, B., Bruyère, C. & Jovanović, D. in Rethinking Migrations in Late Prehistoric Eurasia (eds Fernández-Götz, M. et al.) 142–169 (British Academy, 2022); https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197267356.003.0007

  • Milner, G. R. Trouble in paradise. Legacy review of: War before civilization. By Lawrence H.Keeley, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 1996. xiv + 245 pp. ISBN: 0-19-509112-4 (hardback). Am. J. Biol. Anthropol. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24924 (2024).

  • Koziol, K. M. Shattered mirrors: gender, age, and Westernized interpretations of war (and violence) in the past. In Bioarchaeology of Women and Children in Times of War (eds Martin, D.L. & Tegtmeyer C) 15–26 (Springer, 2017).

  • Brukner, B. Naselje Vinčanske grupe na Gomolavi (neolitski i ranoeneolitski sloj). Izveštaj sa iskopavanja 1967–1976, Rad Vojvođanskih Muzeja 26, 5–55 (1980).

    Google Scholar 

  • Molloy, B. et al. Resilience, innovation and collapse of settlement networks in later Bronze Age Europe: new survey data from the southern Carpathian Basin. PLoS ONE 18, e0288750 (2023).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Tasić, N. An Early Iron Age collective tomb at Gomolava. Archaeologia Iugoslavica XIII 27–37 (1972).

  • Medović, P. & Medović, I. Gradina na Bosutu: naselje starijeg gvozdenog doba (Ildiko Medovic, 2012).

  • Gamba, C. et al. Genome flux and stasis in a five millennium transect of European prehistory. Nat. Commun. 5, 5257 (2014).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Metzner-Nebelsick, C. The first evidence for mounted nomads between the Caucasus and central Europe in the early 1st millennium BC. In Crossing Boundaries – Mounted Nomads in Central Europe, Their Eastern Roots and Connections; Tagungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte Halle (eds Meller, H. & Daim, F.) 125–149 (2022).

  • Mirazón Lahr, M. et al. Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 529, 394–398 (2016).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, C. Early massacres: mass violence in Neolithic Europe. In The Cambridge World History of Violence (eds Fagan, G. G. et al.) 299–319 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2020).

  • Fibiger, L., Ahlström, T., Meyer, C. & Smith, M. Conflict, violence, and warfare among early farmers in Northwestern Europe. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 120, e2209481119 (2023).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Molloy, B. & Horn, C. Weapons, warriors and warfare in Bronze Age Europe. In The Cambridge World History of Violence (eds Fagan, G. G. et al.) 117–141 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2020).

  • Horn, C. Trouble in paradise?—Violent conflict in funnel-beaker societies. Oxf. J. Archaeol. 40, 43–64 (2021).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Brinker, U. et al. Die menschlichen Skelettreste aus dem Tollensetal: Ein Vorbericht. Tod im Tollensetal-Forschungen zu den Hinterlassenschaften eines bronzezeitlichen Gewaltkonfliktes in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Teil 1, 191–208 (2014).

    Google Scholar 

  • Redfern, R. Gendered violence in Iron Age and Roman Britain. In The Cambridge World History of Violence (eds Fagan, G. G. et al.) 320–341 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2020).

  • Király, A., Sebők, K., Zoffmann, Z. K., Kovács, G. & Müller-Scheeßel, N. in Irreguläre Bestattungen in der Urgeschichte: Norm, Ritual, Strafe (ed. Müller-Scheeßel, N.) 307–326 (Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, 2013).

  • Keeley, L. H. War Before Civilization (OUP USA, 1996).

  • Martin, D. L. & Tegtmeyer, C. Bioarchaeology of Women and Children in Times of War: Case Studies from the Americas (Springer, 2017).

  • Waddington, C. et al. Excavations at Fin Cop, Derbyshire: an Iron Age Hillfort in conflict?. Archaeol. J. 169, 159–236 (2012).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Farkas, G. & Marcsik, A. Das Sammelgrab von Gomolava (Jugoslavien) aus der Urzeit. Anthropologie 14, 93–96 (1976).

    Google Scholar 

  • Zoffmann, Z. K. Anthropologische Charakteristik der Bevölkerung der Frûheisen zeitlichen Bosut-Kultur Aufgrund des Kollektivgrabes von Gomolava. Balcanica XXVIII 249–258 (1997).

  • Baten J, S. R. H. in The Backbone of Europe: Health, Diet, Work and Violence over Two Millennia. Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology (eds Steckel R. H. et al.) 300–324 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2018).

  • Fibiger, L. Misplaced childhood? In The Routledge Handbook of the Bioarchaeology of Human Conflict (eds Knüsel, C. & Smith, M.) 127–145 (Routledge, 2014).

  • Ortner, D. J. Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains (Academic Press, 2003).

  • Fibiger, L., Ahlström, T., Bennike, P. & Schulting, R. J. Patterns of violence-related skull trauma in Neolithic Southern Scandinavia. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 150, 190–202 (2013).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Caballero, M. et al. Crossover interference and sex-specific genetic maps shape identical by descent sharing in close relatives. PLoS Genet. 15, e1007979 (2019).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    See also  Music helps young children recognize emotions from an early age

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelabert, P. et al. Social and genetic diversity in first farmers of central Europe. Nat. Hum. Behav. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02034-z (2024).

  • Novak, M. et al. Genome-wide analysis of nearly all the victims of a 6200 year old massacre. PLoS ONE 16, e0247332 (2021).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Schroeder, H. et al. Unraveling ancestry, kinship, and violence in a Late Neolithic mass grave. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 10705–10710 (2019).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Furholt, M. Translocal communities—exploring mobility and migration in sedentary societies of the European Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Praehist. Z. 92, 304–321 (2018).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Metzner-Nebelsick, C. in Rethinking Migrations in Late Prehistoric Eurasia (eds Fernández-Götz, M. et al.) 209–233 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2023).

  • Bruyère, C. et al. Trade, recycling and mixing in local metal management strategies of the later Bronze Age south Carpathian Basin: lead isotope and chemical analyses of hoarded metalwork. J. Archaeol. Sci. 164, 105957 (2024).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Giblin, J. Isotope Analysis on the Great Hungarian Plain: An Exploration of Mobility and Subsistence Strategies from the Neolithic to the Copper Age (Archaeolingua, 2020); https://www.archaeolingua.hu/book/isotope-analysis-great-hungarian-plain-exploration-mobility-and-subsistence-strategies

  • Cavazzuti, C. et al. Human mobility in a Bronze Age Vatya ‘urnfield’ and the life history of a high-status woman. PLoS ONE 16, e0254360 (2021).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Maier, R. et al. On the limits of fitting complex models of population history to F-statistics. eLife 12, e85492 (2023).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Allentoft, M. E. et al. Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia. Nature 522, 167–172 (2015).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Freilich, S. et al. Reconstructing genetic histories and social organisation in Neolithic and Bronze Age Croatia. Sci. Rep. 11, 16729 (2021).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Brück, J. Ancient DNA, kinship and relational identities in Bronze Age Britain. Antiquity 95, 228–237 (2021).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Driessen, J. in An Archaeology of Forced Migration: Crisis-Induced mobility and the Collapse of the 13th c. BCE Eastern Mediterranean 19–24 (Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 2018).

  • Linduff, K. M. & Rubinson, K. S. Are All Warriors Male?: Gender Roles on the Ancient Eurasian Steppe (AltaMira Press, 2008).

  • Pope, R. E. Gender and society. In The Oxford Handbook of the European Iron Age (eds Haselgrove, C. et al.) 1049–1078 (Oxford University Press, 2017).

  • Karmebäck, V. N., Wairore, J. N., Jirström, M. & Nyberg, G. Assessing gender roles in a changing landscape: diversified agro-pastoralism in drylands of West Pokot, Kenya. Pastoralism 5, 1–8 (2015).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Diversity of thought and data enrich archaeology. Nat. Hum. Behav. 8, 183–184 (2024).

  • Fontijn, D. Economies of Destruction: How the Systematic Destruction of Valuables Created Value in Bronze Age Europe, c. 2300500 BC (Routledge, 2019).

  • Janković, I., Balen, J., Potrebica, H., Ahern, J. C. M. & Novak, M. Mass violence in Copper Age Europe: the massacre burial site from Potočani, Croatia. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 176, 474–485 (2021).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Cameron, C. M. Captives and culture change. Curr. Anthropol. 52, 169–209 (2011).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, D. L. Hard times in dry lands: making meaning of violence in the ancient southwest. J. Anthropol. Res. 72, 1–23 (2016).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 

  • Greene, J. A. & Scott, D. D. Finding Sand Creek: History, Archeology, and the 1864 Massacre Site (Univ. Oklahoma Press, 2004).

  • Redfern, R. Iron Age ‘predatory landscapes’: a bioarchaeological and funerary exploration of captivity and enslavement in Britain. Cam. Archaeol. J. 30, 531–554 (2020).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Jans, M. M. E., Nielsen-Marsh, C. M., Smith, C. I., Collins, M. J. & Kars, H. Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone. J. Archaeol. Sci. 31, 87–95 (2004).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Millard, A. R. in Handbook of Archaeological Sciences (eds Brothwell, D. R. & Pollard, A. M.) 637–647 (Wiley, 2001).

  • Buikstra, J. & Ubelaker, D. Standards for data collection from human skeletal remains. Arkansas archaeological survey research series (1994).

  • Mitchell, P. D. & Brickley, M. Updated Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains (Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, 2017).

  • Rogers, J. & Waldron, T. A Field Guide to Joint Disease in Archaeology (John Wiley & Sons, 1995).

  • King, T., Humphrey, L. T. & Hillson, S. Linear enamel hypoplasias as indicators of systemic physiological stress: evidence from two known age-at-death and sex populations from postmedieval London. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 128, 547–559 (2005).

    See also  Nations deadlocked over plastic production limits in global treaty talks

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, J. E. Identifying sword marks on bone: criteria for distinguishing between cut marks made by different classes of bladed weapons. J. Archaeol. Sci. 35, 2001–2008 (2008).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Brock, F., Higham, T., Ditchfield, P. & Ramsey, C. B. Current pretreatment methods for AMS radiocarbon dating at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU). Radiocarbon 52, 103–112 (2010).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 

  • Dee, M. & Bronk Ramsey, C. Refinement of graphite target production at ORAU. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 172, 449–453 (2000).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 

  • Stuiver, M. & Polach, H. A. Discussion reporting of 14C data. Radiocarbon 19, 355–363 (1977).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, R. E., Bronk Ramsey, C. & Higham, T. F. G. Refining background corrections for radiocarbon dating of bone collagen at ORAU. Radiocarbon 52, 600–611 (2010).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, B. et al. Antibody-based sex determination of human skeletal remains. iScience 26, 108191 (2023).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, N. A., Gerlach, R. F., Gowland, R. L., Gron, K. J. & Montgomery, J. Sex determination of human remains from peptides in tooth enamel. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 13649–13654 (2017).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Laffoon, J. E., Davies, G. R., Hoogland, M. L. P. & Hofman, C. L. Spatial variation of biologically available strontium isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) in an archipelagic setting: a case study from the Caribbean. J. Archaeol. Sci. 39, 2371–2384 (2012).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Kootker, L. M., van Lanen, R. J., Kars, H. & Davies, G. R. Strontium isoscapes in The Netherlands. Spatial variations in 87Sr/86Sr as a proxy for palaeomobility. J. Archaeol. Sci. Rep. 6, 1–13 (2016).

    Google Scholar 

  • Tuross, N., Fogel, M. L. & Hare, P. E. Variability in the preservation of the isotopic composition of collagen from fossil bone. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 52, 929–935 (1988).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar 

  • Qi, H., Coplen, T. B., Geilmann, H., Brand, W. A. & Böhlke, J. K. Two new organic reference materials for delta13C and delta15N measurements and a new value for the delta13C of NBS 22 oil. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. 17, 2483–2487 (2003).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinhasi, R. et al. Optimal ancient DNA yields from the inner ear part of the human petrous bone. PLoS ONE 10, e0129102 (2015).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Rohland, N. & Hofreiter, M. Ancient DNA extraction from bones and teeth. Nat. Protoc. 2, 1756–1762 (2007).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Damgaard, P. B. et al. Improving access to endogenous DNA in ancient bones and teeth. Sci. Rep. 5, 11184 (2015).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Rohland, N., Harney, E., Mallick, S., Nordenfelt, S. & Reich, D. Partial uracil–DNA–glycosylase treatment for screening of ancient DNA. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 370, 20130624 (2015).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Fellows Yates, J. A. et al. Reproducible, portable, and efficient ancient genome reconstruction with nf-core/eager. PeerJ 9, e10947 (2021).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Schubert, M., Lindgreen, S. & Orlando, L. AdapterRemoval v2: rapid adapter trimming, identification, and read merging. BMC Res. Notes 9, 88 (2016).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Li, H. & Durbin, R. Fast and accurate short read alignment with Burrows-Wheeler transform. Bioinformatics 25, 1754–1760 (2009).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Neukamm, J., Peltzer, A. & Nieselt, K. DamageProfiler: fast damage pattern calculation for ancient DNA. Bioinformatics https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btab190 (2021).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Huang, Y. & Ringbauer, H. hapCon: estimating contamination of ancient genomes by copying from reference haplotypes. Bioinformatics https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btac390 (2022).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Fu, Q. et al. A revised timescale for human evolution based on ancient mitochondrial genomes. Curr. Biol. 23, 553–559 (2013).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubinacci, S., Ribeiro, D. M., Hofmeister, R. J. & Delaneau, O. Efficient phasing and imputation of low-coverage sequencing data using large reference panels. Nat. Genet. 53, 120–126 (2021).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Auton, A. & Salcedo, T. in Assessing Rare Variation in Complex Traits: Design and Analysis of Genetic Studies (eds Zeggini, E. & Morris, A.) 71–85 (Springer, 2015).

  • Sousa da Mota, B. et al. Imputation of ancient human genomes. Nat. Commun. 14, 3660 (2023).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    See also  Study investigates how having a pet in early childhood can influence emotional development

    Google Scholar 

  • Anastasiadou, K. et al. Detection of chromosomal aneuploidy in ancient genomes. Commun. Biol. 7, 14 (2024).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Weissensteiner, H. et al. HaploGrep 2: mitochondrial haplogroup classification in the era of high-throughput sequencing. Nucleic Acids Res. 44, W58–W63 (2016).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Weissensteiner, H. et al. Contamination detection in sequencing studies using the mitochondrial phylogeny. Genome Res. https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.256545.119 (2021).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Ralf, A., Montiel González, D., Zhong, K. & Kayser, M. Yleaf: software for human Y-chromosomal haplogroup inference from next-generation sequencing data. Mol. Biol. Evol. 35, 1291–1294 (2018).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Waples, R. K., Albrechtsen, A. & Moltke, I. Allele frequency-free inference of close familial relationships from genotypes or low-depth sequencing data. Mol. Ecol. 28, 35–48 (2019).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Korneliussen, T. S. & Moltke, I. NgsRelate: a software tool for estimating pairwise relatedness from next-generation sequencing data. Bioinformatics 31, 4009–4011 (2015).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Rohrlach, A. B. et al. BREADR: an R Package for the Bayesian estimation of genetic relatedness from low-coverage genotype data. J. Open Source Softw. 10, 7916 (2025).

    Article 

    Google Scholar 

  • Purcell, S. et al. PLINK: a tool set for whole-genome association and population-based linkage analyses. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 81, 559–575 (2007).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Ceballos, F. C., Hazelhurst, S. & Ramsay, M. Assessing runs of Homozygosity: a comparison of SNP Array and whole genome sequence low coverage data. BMC Genomics 19, 106 (2018).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Ringbauer, H. et al. Accurate detection of identity-by-descent segments in human ancient DNA. Nat. Genet. 56, 143–151 (2024).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernandes, D. M. et al. A genetic history of the pre-contact Caribbean. Nature 590, 103–110 (2021).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Fournier, R., Tsangalidou, Z., Reich, D. & Palamara, P. F. Haplotype-based inference of recent effective population size in modern and ancient DNA samples. Nat. Commun. 14, 7945 (2023).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Pankratov, V. et al. Differences in local population history at the finest level: the case of the Estonian population. Eur. J. Hum. Genet. 28, 1580–1591 (2020).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Mallick, S. et al. The Allen Ancient DNA Resource (AADR): a curated compendium of ancient human genomes. Sci. Data 11, 182 (2024).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerber, D. et al. Interdisciplinary analyses of Bronze Age communities from Western Hungary Reveal complex population histories. Mol. Biol. Evol. 40, (2023).

  • Davidson, R. et al. Allelic bias when performing in-solution enrichment of ancient human DNA. Mol. Ecol. Resour. 23, 1823–1840 (2023).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Rohland, N. et al. Three assays for in-solution enrichment of ancient human DNA at more than a million SNPs. Genome Res. 32, 2068–2078 (2022).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Patterson, N. et al. Ancient admixture in human history. Genetics 192, 1065–1093 (2012).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Parks, D. H. et al. GTDB: an ongoing census of bacterial and archaeal diversity through a phylogenetically consistent, rank normalized and complete genome-based taxonomy. Nucleic Acids Res. 50, D785–D794 (2022).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Nayfach, S. et al. CheckV assesses the quality and completeness of metagenome-assembled viral genomes. Nat. Biotechnol. 39, 578–585 (2021).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 

  • Langmead, B. & Salzberg, S. L. Fast gapped-read alignment with Bowtie 2. Nat. Methods 9, 357–359 (2012).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Michelsen, C. et al. metaDMG—a fast and accurate ancient DNA damage toolkit for metagenomic data. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.06.519264 (2022).

  • Sikora, M. et al. The spatiotemporal distribution of human pathogens in ancient Eurasia. Nature 643, 1011–1019 (2025).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar 

  • Balliana, E., Aramendía, M., Resano, M., Barbante, C. & Vanhaecke, F. Copper and tin isotopic analysis of ancient bronzes for archaeological investigation: development and validation of a suitable analytical methodology. Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 405, 2973–2986 (2013).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar 


  • Source link

    Digit

    Digit is a versatile content creator with expertise in Health, Technology, Movies, and News. With over 7 years of experience, he delivers well-researched, engaging, and insightful articles that inform and entertain readers. Passionate about keeping his audience updated with accurate and relevant information, Digit combines factual reporting with actionable insights. Follow his latest updates and analyses on DigitPatrox.
    Back to top button
    close