Search

Abstract The genomic landscape of Stone Age Europe was shaped by multiple migratory waves and population replacements, but different regions do not all show similar patterns. To refine our understanding of the population dynamics before and after the dawn of the Neolithic, we generated and analyzed genomic sequence data from human remains of 56 individuals from the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Eneolithic across Central and Eastern Europe. We found that Mesolithic European populations formed a geographically widespread isolation-by-distance zone ranging from Central Europe to Siberia, which was already established 10,000 years ago. We found contrasting patterns of population continuity during the Neolithic transition: people around the lower Dnipro Valley region, Ukraine, showed continuity over 4000 years, from the Mesolithic to the end of the Neolithic, in contrast to almost all other parts of Europe where population turnover drove this cultural change, including vast areas of Central Europe and around the Danube River.

Abstract The demographic history of East-Central Europe after the Neolithic period remains poorly explored, despite this region being on the confluence of various ecological zones and cultural entities. Here, the descendants of societies associated with steppe pastoralists form Early Bronze Age were followed by Middle Bronze Age populations displaying unique characteristics. Particularly, the predominance of collective burials, the scale of which, was previously seen only in the Neolithic. The extent to which this re-emergence of older traditions is a result of genetic shift or social changes in the MBA is a subject of debate. Here by analysing 91 newly generated genomes from Bronze Age individuals from present Poland and Ukraine, we discovered that Middle Bronze Age populations were formed by an additional admixture event involving a population with relatively high proportions of genetic component associated with European hunter-gatherers and that their social structure was based on, primarily patrilocal, multigenerational kin-groups.

The "princely" barrows of Łęki Małe, Greater Poland are the oldest such monuments within the distribution area of Únětice societies in Central Europe. While in the Circum-Harz group and in Silesia similar rich furnished graves under mounds have appeared as single monuments as early as 1950 BC, Łęki Małe represents a chain of barrows constructed between 2150 BC and 1800 BC. Of the original 14 mounds, only four were preserved well enough that their complex biographies can now be reconstructed. They included ritual activities (before, during, and after the funeral), and also subsequent incursions, including robberies. The long lasting barrow cemetery at Łęki Małe can be linked to a nearby fortified site, Bruszczewo. Together, Łęki Małe and Bruszczewo represent a stable, socially differentiated society that existed for no less than 350-400 years. Therefore, it can be argued that the Early Bronze Age societies of Greater Poland were extremely sustainable in comparison to those of other Únětice regions.

During rescue excavations at Site 1 in Kotowo in 1958, a ceramic tube was discovered in a feature of the Funnel Beaker culture. Currently, XRF analysis suggests that it is a ceramic tuyère associated with copper processing. The feature, radiocarbon dated to 3911–3714 BC (68.3% probability), most likely housed a metalworking workshop. The artefact from Kotowo has several analogues in the Polish lands, mainly from sites of the Lengyel-Polgár culture. With a clear and well-documented cultural context, it testifies to the existence of the oldest metallurgical workshop so far known in the Funnel Beaker culture.

The authors discuss the current state of knowledge concerning the specific pottery features of the Funnel Beaker culture (FBC) that constitute the "cycle of Pikutkowo stylistics”. These characteristics are especially strongly represented in the Kuyavia region where the changes in the "Pikutkowo” set of characteristics define phases III B and III B-C of the FBC, dated to 3700–3200 BC. Relatively quickly, because already in the period 3700–3600 BC, "Pikutkowo” pottery appears not only in the Polish Lowlands (including Greater Poland and Central Poland, as well as in the Chełmno Land and the Gostynin Lake District), but also in the old upland areas located in the upper Vistula basin. The latest data indicate that at the same time „Pikutkowo” characteristics are also present in FBC assemblages from the Subcarpathian foothills, as well as from the upper Dniester. In the final centuries of the first half of the fourth millennium BC, "Pikutkowo” features were resent with varying intensity within the borders of the Vistula and Odra catchment area in the west and the Dniester drainage basin in the east. The authors argue that this wide distribution designates the "Pikutkowo stylistics space”, which was a zone of active circulation of cultural patterns within the FBC. The culture-forming potential of this zone is best confirmed by the phenomenon of the transfer of one of the key innovations at the time, i.e. copper (including arsenic copper) processing.