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The Wartberg culture (WBC, 3500-2800 BCE) dates to the Late Neolithic period, a time of important demographic and cultural transformations in western Europe. We performed genome-wide analyses of 42 individuals who were interred in a WBC collective burial in Niedertiefenbach, Germany (3300-3200 cal. BCE). The results showed that the farming population of Niedertiefenbach carried a surprisingly large hunter-gatherer ancestry component (34–58%). This component was most likely introduced during the cultural transformation that led to the WBC. In addition, the Niedertiefenbach individuals exhibited a distinct human leukocyte antigen gene pool, possibly reflecting an immune response that was geared towards detecting viral infections., Alexander Immel et al. performed genome-wide analyses of 42 individuals from a collective burial in Niedertiefenbach, Germany from the Wartberg Culture. The authors find that this population had a large hunter-gatherer ancestry component and a distinct HLA pool, which indicates immune defenses against viral pathogens.

Only 21 human remains have been identified at Zamostje 2, despite extraordinarily good conditions for organic preservation, and the recovery of thousands of animal bones from layers dating from the Late Mesolithic to the Middle Neolithic (c.6500–4000 cal BC). Almost all the human remains are fragments of the cranium, maxilla, mandible, which are potentially reworked from earlier depositions, uphill or upstream of Zamostje 2, or isolated teeth. Disregarding naturally shed deciduous teeth, these remains have been attributed to between 5 and 14 individuals, ranging in age from 6 to 7 years to mature adult. We report AMS radiocarbon (14C) dating and dietary stable isotopes, δ13C and δ15N, for all the human bones, and δ13C and δ15N values from 63 prehistoric animal bones from Zamostje 2, including 18 fish and 7 dogs. Using the faunal isotope data, we construct isotope signatures for different food groups, which we use to interpret the human δ13C and δ15N values. Based on 14C ages and dietary stable isotopes, we propose that the human bones represent 10–12 individuals, most of whom date to the Late Mesolithic occupation at Zamostje 2; one is somewhat earlier in the Mesolithic, one (probably from the nearby site, Zamostje 1) may date to the Middle Neolithic, and two (one from Zamostje 1, one unprovenanced) date to the Late Neolithic or Eneolithic. The earliest and latest individuals may have obtained most of their dietary protein intake from fish, but Late Mesolithic individuals probably had more mixed diets. Palaeodiet reconstruction is complicated by unusual δ13C and δ15N values for local fish in the Late Mesolithic, which are reflected in δ13C and δ15N values from dogs.

The Neolithization of Northern Eurasia is marked by the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer societies. The driving forces behind the adoption of ceramic cooking vessels among non-agricultural societies remain unclear, although previous research, mainly in North East Asia (e.g. Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East), suggests that it was adopted as a specialist technology for processing aquatic resources, linked to the intensification of fishing activities and a move to sedentism. The stratified site of Zamostje 2 in the forest zone of the Volga-Oka region includes both aceramic Mesolithic and two early ceramic horizons dating to Early Neolithic (EN) and Middle Neolithic (MN). This provides a unique opportunity to look at the impacts of the adoption of pottery on the wider economy and determine whether pottery function changes over time. This was achieved through the analysis of lipids from 166 potsherds dating from the earliest phases (mid-6th millennium cal BC) to the MN (5th millennium cal BC). Contrary to our expectations, the pottery from the EN phase was used to process a broad range of foodstuffs including terrestrial resources, such as forest fruits, in addition to freshwater fish. In contrast, pottery from the MN phase was used exclusively for processing aquatic resources. The results show that in this case, pottery was adopted as a more general-purpose cooking container, at least in the earliest phases of use, and that a specialist function only emerged later.

The Eastern European steppe and forest-steppe is a key region for understanding the emergence of pottery in Europe. The vast region encompasses the basins of two major waterways, the Don and the Volga rivers, and was occupied by hunter-gatherer-fisher communities attracted to highly productive forest/aquatic ecotones. The precise dates for the inception of pottery production in this region and the function of pottery is unknown, but such information is vital for charting the pan-Eurasian dispersal of pottery technology and whether there were common motivations for its adoption. To investigate, we conducted AMS dating, including a re-evaluation of legacy radiocarbon dates together with organic residue analysis and microscopy. The dating programme was able to clarify the sequence and show that hunter-gatherer pottery production was unlikely in this region before the 6th millennium BC. Regarding use, stable isotope and molecular analysis of 160 pottery samples from 35 sites across the region shows that terrestrial animal carcass fats were preferentially processed in pots at Middle Volga sites whereas aquatic resources dominate the residues in pottery from the Middle and Upper Don basin. This is supported by fragments of fish, legumes and grasses in the available charred deposits adhering to the inside of pottery from the Don basin. Since the sites from both river basins had similar environmental settings and were broadly contemporaneous, it is posited that pottery use was under strong cultural control, recognisable as separate sub-regional culinary traditions. The ‘aquatic hypothesis’, previously suggested to explain the emergence of Eurasian pottery, cannot be substantiated in this context.

Archaeological research at ancient Lake Duvensee began almost 100 years ago (Groß et al. 2018) and has recently revealed another early Holocene site, Duvensee WP 10, which was excavated from 2016–2020. Here, we will present the first results of the investigations. The site shows several characteristics known from other sites within the area. However, it is noteworthy that, in comparison to the other local campsites, several discarded animal bones were found – an archaeological find group that is almost lacking in the micro-region. Dense scatters of flint artefacts and hazelnuts represent the majority of the find spectrum and indicate a mainly undisturbed, single-phased site as corroborated by the radiocarbon dating and the stratigraphy. Furthermore, the results show that the lake level at ancient lake Duvensee must have dropped significantly shortly after the occupation of Duvensee WP 10 and that people used the site for processing hunted animals, artefact production, and hazelnut roasting.

The emergence of pottery in Europe is associated with two distinct traditions: hunter-gatherers in the east of the continent during the early 6th millennium BC and early agricultural communities in the south-west in the late 7th millennium BC. Here we investigate the function of pottery from the site of Rakushechny Yar, located at the Southern fringe of Eastern Europe, in this putative contact zone between these two economic ‘worlds’. To investigate, organic residue analysis was conducted on 120 samples from the Early Neolithic phase (ca. mid-6th millennium BC) along with microscopic and SEM analysis of associated foodcrusts. The results showed that the earliest phase of pottery use was predominantly used to process riverine resources. Many of the vessels have molecular and isotopic characteristics consistent with migratory fish, such as sturgeon, confirmed by the identification of sturgeon bony structures embedded in the charred surface deposits. There was no evidence of dairy products in any of the vessels, despite the fact these have been routinely identified in coeval sites to the south. Further analysis of some of the mammalian bones using ZooMS failed to demonstrate that domesticated animals were present in the Early Neolithic. Nevertheless, we argue that intensive exploitation of seasonally migratory fish, accompanied by large-scale pottery production, created storable surpluses that led to similar socio-economic outcomes as documented in early agricultural societies. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12520-021-01412-2.

Radiocarbon (14C) results on cremated bone are frequently published in high-ranking journals, but 14C laboratories employ different pretreatment methods as they have divergent perceptions of what sources of contaminants might be present. We found pretreatment protocols to vary significantly between three laboratories (Brussels [RICH], Kiel [KIA], and Groningen [CIO]), which all have a long history of dating cremated bone. We present a case study of 6 sets of replicate dates, to compare laboratory pretreatment protocols, and a further 16 sets of inter-laboratory replicate measurements, which compare specific steps of the conversion and measuring process. The 14C results showed dates to be reproducible between the laboratories and consistent with the expected archaeological chronology. We found that differences in pretreatment, conversion to CO2 and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurement to have no measurable influence on the majority of obtained results, suggesting that any possible diagenesis was probably restricted to the most soluble ≤5% of each sample, as this proportion of the sample mass was removed under all laboratory protocols.

Ceramic containers, intentionally deposited into wetlands, offer detailed insights into Early Neolithic culinary practices. Additionally, they are key for ascertaining the Neolithisation process in Denmark since they appear to form a typo-chronological sequence. Here, we use a combination of organic residue analysis (ORA) of pottery alongside Bayesian chronological modelling of the radiocarbon dates obtained on these vessels to explore the initial stages of votive deposition in wetlands, a practice that stretches from the Mesolithic to the onset of Christianity in Northern Europe. We consider 34 Early-Middle Neolithic (c. 3900–2350 cal BC) ‘bog pots’ from Denmark, of which 20 have ORA data, and 26 have been dated directly. Carbonised surface residues and absorbed lipids from powdered sherds were analysed using a combination of bulk carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and GC-combustion-isotope ratio MS (GC-C-IRMS). The molecular and isotopic compositions of the analysed samples revealed the presence of aquatic, ruminant carcass and dairy fats as well as plant waxes with the majority containing mixtures thereof. Dairy fats were present from the onset of the Funnel Beaker culture, whilst aquatic foods, prevalent at the close of the preceding Mesolithic period, continued to be processed in pottery for the following thousand years.

The Rodhals kitchen midden was located on a tiny stretch of land 18 km from the nearest major landmass in present-day Denmark. It dates to the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, roughly 4300 to 3700 cal BC. Its inhabitants practiced a remarkably broad-scale exploitation of marine resources spanning from the collecting of mollusks on the sea-shore, over open-sea fowling and deep-water angling to the killing of small whales. The sparse traces of terrestrial diet are mainly from cattle, sheep, pig and cereals dating to a late stage of the habitation. Strategic raw materials of bone and antler from large forest game were only occasionally imported from across the sea. In terms of artefact types and production modes, the material culture of Rodhals represents the ultimate stage of the local fisher-hunter-gatherer Ertebolle Culture and an initial stage of the farming-based Funnel Beaker Culture. The extreme marine adaptation seen at this site may reflect a historically extraordinary situation, where an indigenous population of foragers had lost major parts of its territory to immigrant farmers.

The Upper Volga culture (UVC) in the Volga and Oka basin is one of the earliest pottery cultures in Eastern Europe. The Sakhtysh IIa site is attributed to the core area of the UVC, with pottery encompassing all stages of this culture. A detailed analysis of artefact deposition in different lay­ers allows the creation of chronological models of early pottery development in this region. A series of new radiocarbon dates of food crust on pottery sherds which typologically belong to different stages of UVC at Sakhtysh IIa, as well as an overview of the oldest pottery are presented in this article.

1940–1965 m., vykdant Varduvos upės vagos ir Ertenio ežero melioracijos darbus Šarnelės kaime, Šiaurės vakarų Lietuvoje, buvo rasta pavienių iš gyvūnų kaulų ir ragų pagamintų įrankių, datuojamų akmens amžiumi (1 pav.). 1973 ir 1981–1982 m. čia buvo atliekami archeologiniai kasinėjimai, kurių metu rasta akmens amžiaus pabaiga – bronzos amžiumi datuojama gyvenvietė su palankiomis organikos išlikimo sąlygomis. 2016 m. pradėti intensyvūs Žemaičių aukštumos akmens amžiaus paminklų ir pavienių radinių tyrimai suteikė progą detaliau panagrinėti Šarnelėje rastus pavienius kaulo ir rago radinius. Verpsto formos ornamentuoto kaulinio durklo (2 ir 3 pav.) datavimas parodė, kad jis priklauso paskutinio driaso laikotarpiui, t. y. 10 569– 10 134 cal BC (95 proc. tikimybė) (4 pav.). Šiuo metu Rytų Baltijos regione tai yra ankstyviausias ornamentuotas tokio tipo dirbinys, kuris turi medžiotojųrankiotojų mobiliojo meno apraiškų. Dirbinys iš abiejų pusių ornamentuotas susikertančių linijų motyvu, kuris suformuoja atskirus trikampius ir rombus (5 ir 6 pav.). Kol kas dar nėra nustatyta tiksli rūšis gyvūno, kuriam priklausė kaulas, tačiau stabiliųjų izotopų duomenys rodytų stambų žolėdį gyvūną, tikėtina, briedį. Chronologiniu požiūriu durklas patenka į bendrą Rytų ir pietryčių Baltijos regiono datuotų finalinio paleolito rago ir kaulo dirbinių kontekstą (7 pav.). Tikėtina, kad pagal savo amžių kaulinis durklas galėjo priklausyti Svidrų kultūros technologijai, kurios gyvenviečių yra aptinkama Vakarų Lietuvoje. Šarnelėje rastas kaulinis durklas ne tik svariai papildo menkus šiuo metu turimus Rytų Baltijos regiono vėlyvojo paleolito kaulo ir rago technologijos duomenis, bet ir suteikia žinių apie ankstyviausią šiame regione žinomą priešistorinį meną. This paper presents the latest data on a spindle-shaped decorated bone dagger, which was found as a stray find in the village of Šarnelė in northwest Lithuania, and which recently been dated to the Final Palaeolithic. It is currently the only one such example of osseous technology in Lithuania dated to this period. In 2016, we started to reinvestigate the Stone Age material from the Samogitian highland by AMS radiocarbon (14C) dating, stable isotopes, use-wear and Raman methods. AMS dating showed that the decorated dagger discovered in the surroundings of the drained Lake Ertenis and the River Varduva at Šarnelė currently is one of the oldest prehistoric art objects found in Lithuania and possibly in the eastern Baltic region as well. The dagger was also analysed by use-wear method, which helped to identify some stages of the production of the article itself and its decoration. The paper presents the first results of research of this artefact in the wider geographical and taxonomic context of the Final Palaeolithic in northern Europe.

This paper gives a systematized overview of different Narva stage sites in Estonia, describing their artefactual and archaeozoological material, and environmental conditions. We demonstrate the diversity of Narva stage settlement types (sites on coastal river estuaries, coast, coastal lagoons, inland river banks and shores of inland lakes) and economy (marine, terrestrial/inland aquatic and mixed subsistence) in the region. A further site-based description of Narva pottery is also provided in order to exemplify the similarities and differences of this earliest pottery type in the eastern Baltic. We also present a comprehensive list of all currently available Narva stage radiocarbon dates from Estonia and Ingermanland (north-western Russia) according to which the Narva-type pottery in the northern part of its distribution area dates to the period c. 5200-3900 cal BC. Additionally, the issues of dating food crust, especially the high risk of reservoir effect offsets, are emphasized. We carried out a comparative study dating contemporaneous food crusts and plant remains and conducting lipid residue analysis employing combined methods of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS, EA-IRMS). The results demonstrate the implications and importance of characterizing lipid residues so that samples with reservoir correction can at least be identified. Introduction The beginning of pottery use is a substantial and important innovation in the history of humankind. It must have brought along a new concept not only for storage and cooking, but also changes in technology and production skills, transport and trading. The earliest pottery known to date is from eastern Asia (China, Japan and Russian Far East and eastern Siberia) and goes back to the end of the Pleistocene (e.g. Nakamura et al. 2001; Kuzmin 2006; Boaretto et al. 2009; Shevkomud & Yanshina 2012, 53). In the Baltic Sea region pottery first appears, depending on traditions of archaeological periodization, in the Early Neolithic (Finland, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus) or Late Mesolithic period (Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Estonia) (e.g. Loze & Lijva 1989; Girininkas 2005, 105 f.; Kriiska 2009, fig. 5; Piezonka 2012, 24). Earlier in Estonia the introduction of pottery was assigned to the Neolithic period, as with other Baltic States (e.g. Jaanits et al. 1982, 61; Lang & Kriiska 2001, 89). Since the adoption of pottery generated no significant change in the local settlement pattern, subsistence economy nor, presumably, in social organization, the new periodization of the Stone Age in Estonia proceeds from the process of the introduction of domesticates. The latter occurred more than a thousand years after the adoption of pottery and resulted in major shifts in the society, settlement and economy in both Estonia and neighbouring areas (Kriiska 2009, 167; Nordqvist et al. 2015, 143). Two major pottery traditions, divided into many sub-variants, can be distinguished in the Baltic Sea region. One of the traditions embraces pottery types that comprise large pointed- or rounded-bottomed pots and, in places, also small and shallow saucer-shaped vessels (see e.g. Hallgren 2004, fig. 1). The know-how of making such vessels spread from the late 6th millennium through the early 5th millennium cal BC (e.g. Loze 1988, 101; Hallgren 2004, 136 f.; Piezonka 2008, 76; 2012, 42; Girininkas 2009, 127; Kriiska 2009, 161; Jennbert 2011, 99; Pesonen et al. 2012). Five types of early pottery are traditionally distinguished in the Baltic Sea region: (1) Ertebolle in southern Scandinavia, northern Germany and northern Poland (e.g. Hallgren 2004, 135; Jennbert 2011); (2) Early comb ware (or Sperrings) in southern Finland and north-western Russia (e.g. Luho 1957; German 2002); (3) Saraisniemi 1 in northern Finland and in Karelia, the Kola Peninsula in Russia and northern Sweden (e.g. Torvinen 2000; Haggren et al. …

In this paper I argue that the theory that holes are immaterial objects faces an objection that has traditionally been thought to be the principal difficulty with its main rival, which construes holes as material parts of material objects. Consequently, one of the principal advantages of identifying holes with immaterial objects is illusory: its apparent ease of accounting for truths about number of holes. I argue that in spite of this we should not think of holes as material parts of material objects. This is because the theory that holes are properties does not face the same difficulties as either of these theories that construe holes as objects of some sort.

This paper presents an argument against A D Smith's Direct Realist theory of perception, which attempts to defend Direct Realism against the argument from illusion by appealing to conscious perceptual states that are structured by the perceptual constancies. Smith's contention is that the immediate objects of perceptual awareness are characterised by these constancies, which removes any difficulty there may be in identifying them with the external, or normal, objects of awareness. It is here argued that Smith's theory does not provide an adequate defence of Direct Realism because it does not adequately deal with the difficulties posed by the possibility of perceptual illusion. It is argued that there remain possible illusory experiences where the immediate objects of awareness, which in Smith's account are those characterised by perceptual constancies, cannot be identified with the external objects of awareness, contrary to Direct Realism. A further argument is offered to extend this conclusion to all non-illusory cases, by adapting an argument of Smith's own for the generalising step of the Argument from Illusion. The result is that Smith's theory does not provide an adequate Direct Realist account of the possibility of perceptual illusion. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Forty-four radiocarbon results are now available from the Hazleton North long cairn, and are presented within an interpretive Bayesian statistical framework. Three alternative archaeological interpretations of the sequence are given, each with a separate Bayesian model. In our preferred model the cairn is considered to be a unitary construction, following on from the pre-cairn midden and other activity after a short interval during which the site was cultivated; bodies of the recently dead were subsequently interred in the chambered areas. Further human remains were deposited in the entrances to the chambers slightly later in the Neolithic, after the primary phase of use of the cairn for burials. This model suggests that the cairn was constructed in the first half of the thirty-seventh century cal. bc, and that its primary use for burial lasted for only two or three generations, ending probably in the 3620s cal. bc. A second model which varies only in postulating continuity between the pre-cairn activity and the cairn itself has poor overall agreement, suggesting that this interpretation is improbable. The third model explores the possibility that some of the human remains (those where the deposition of intact corpses cannot be strongly inferred from the archaeological record) may have been curated for a considerable time since death when deposited in the tomb. This interpretation suggests a slightly later date for the construction of the cairn, in the middle decades of the thirty-seventh century cal. bc, and suggests that any human remains which were not interred as corpses were less than a century old when deposited. The correspondence between the bones most likely, on chronological grounds, to be ‘ancestral’ and those most likely, on archaeological grounds, not to have been deposited as intact corpses is, however, poor. For this reason we feel there is no clear evidence that the human remains at Hazleton were not deposited shortly after the deaths of the individuals concerned, and we prefer model 1.

Artificial illumination is a fundamental human need. Burning wood and other materials usually in hearths and fireplaces extended daylight hours, whilst the use of flammable substances in torches offered light on the move. It is increasingly understood that pottery played a role in light production. In this study, we focus on ceramic oval bowls, made and used primarily by hunter-gatherer-fishers of the circum-Baltic over a c. 2000 year period beginning in the mid-6th millennium cal bc. Oval bowls commonly occur alongside larger (cooking) vessels. Their function as ‘oil lamps’ for illumination has been proposed on many occasions but only limited direct evidence has been secured to test this functional association. This study presents the results of molecular and isotopic analysis of preserved organic residues obtained from 115 oval bowls from 25 archaeological sites representing a wide range of environmental settings. Our findings confirm that the oval bowls of the circum-Baltic were used primarily for burning fats and oils, predominantly for the purposes of illumination. The fats derive from the tissues of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial organisms. Bulk isotope data of charred surface deposits show a consistently different pattern of use when oval bowls are compared to other pottery vessels within the same assemblage. It is suggested that hunter-gatherer-fishers around the 55th parallel commonly deployed material culture for artificial light production but the evidence is restricted to times and places where more durable technologies were employed, including the circum-Baltic.

Single-year 14C sampling of a spruce log from the timber platform on which the Āraiši lake-fortress was built dates this timber exactly, by synchronization with AD 774/5 Miyake event. Dendrochronological synchronisms between the dated log and other timbers provide annual precision for the construction of the site. The felling date obtained, AD 835, is 50–60 years later than that proposed previously (Meadows and Zunde 2014) on the basis of a wiggle-match between 14C ages of decadal blocks and the IntCal13 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2013), although the same 14C data favor a felling date in the AD 830s when wiggle-matched to IntCal20 (Reimer et al. 2020). Our results appear to confirm doubts expressed by Philippsen et al. (2022) about IntCal20 values from ca. AD 825-835.

International audience; Many wetland areas in Northern Europe have preserved relevant organic material, but the archaeologicalsite of Hohen Viecheln (Germany) offers the exceptional preservation of part of an open-air lakeside settlementsite much as it was during its long period of occupation in the Early Holocene. The analysis of productiondebris and artefacts discarded there amongst the refuse of consumption has provided evidence for aculturally-specific concept underlying the production of hunting/fishing gear. The major potential of this corpusof finds lies in the opportunity it presents for the comparison of the technologies employed at the site overtime, and the broadening of such comparisons to contemporaneous sites that have yielded similar assemblagesin neighbouring and more distant regions. On the basis of artefact morphology and fabrication techniques ofartefacts made of the bones of butchered animals, Hohen Viecheln has become a key Postglacial (Early Mesolithic)site in the illumination of a unique technological tradition, the ‘northern technocomplex’, spanningthe whole of Northern Europe west of the Baltic Sea during the Early Mesolithic, distinct from contemporarytechnologies of other Nordic regions, and those of eastern origin.The northern technocomplex, which represents a technological tradition that occurred in the bone manufacturein the western part of Northern Europe from the 9th to 8th millennia cal. BC, is marked by a strongdiachronic consistency in artefact form and design over a period of about two millennia. Within it, HohenViecheln stands out for the relative crudeness of the barbed points that were probably used as leister prongs.An analysis of this unique technological trait raises two primary areas of further inquiry: 1) the relationshipbetween the industrial domain and that of subsistence, when a single animal species served as a primaryresource in both domains, and 2) the recognition of distinct cultural groups founded on a techno-stylisticvariability as observed in the form of such projectile points. It is assumed here that Hohen Viecheln belongedto (a) subgroup(s) (Duvensee/Pritzerbe) of this northern technocomplex throughout the period of its occupation,with the addition of a Maglemosian component in its more recent phase. Without offering a conclusiveexplanation of the origin of this apparent technological transformation, from Duvensee/Pritzerbe to Duvensee/Pritzerbe + Maglemose (autochthonous innovation, acculturation, import?), the study examines theHohen Viecheln osseous industry in diachronic and regional context, and in comparison with contemporaryassemblages from the neighbouring region of Zealand (Denmark), where the Maglemosian appears – technostylistically– as a more internally-consistent, monolithic entity. The results provide new evidence relevantto the old debate over the appropriateness of chrono-cultural seriation based solely on durable elements ofmaterial production and the implications for understanding the relationships between recognized postglacialcultural groups in this area of Northern Europe.