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Vitamin D deficiency has hugely impacted the health of past societies. Its identification in skeletal remains provides insights into the daily activities, cultural habits, and the disease load of past populations. However, up till now, this approach remained impossible in cremated bones, because temperatures reached during cremations destroyed all macroscopic evidence of vitamin D deficiency. This precluded the analyses of a large fraction of the archaeological record, as cremation was an important burial ritual from the Late Neolithic until the Early Medieval period in Europe. Here, the identification of interglobular dentine (IGD), a dental mineralisation defect attributed to vitamin D deficiency, in experimentally burnt teeth, demonstrates this deficiency to be observable in human teeth burned to temperatures as high as 900 °C. In most cases, it becomes even possible to assess the ages-of-occurrence as well as the severity of the IGD and possibly vitamin D deficiency intensity. This study represents a major step forward in the fields of biological anthropology, archaeology, and palaeopathology by opening up a variety of new possibilities for the study of health and activities related to sunlight exposure of numerous past populations that practiced cremation as their funerary ritual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 records abrupt transitions from cold stadial to temperate interstadial climate conditions, termed Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) events. Reconstructing these rapid climate changes is crucial for documenting the prevailing climatic conditions in Europe during the extinction of the Neanderthals. However, only few continental records are available to define the continental climatic responses to DO changes. Here, the elemental and stable isotope compositions of a well-dated speleothem in Belgium covering the MIS 3 are documented. This speleothem precipitated under equilibrium conditions based on Δ 48 thermometry, allowing the use of Δ 47 thermometry with confidence. Moreover, the precision and accuracy of our clumped-isotope analyses are demonstrated through the long-term monitoring of international Δ 47 standards. The acquired unique thermometry paleoclimatic dataset enables the reconstruction of temperature based on the hydrological information (oxygen-18 of drip water; δ18Ow) and sheds new light on the DO climate variations. A temperature differential of ∼7 °C is associated with alternating temperate warm and wet Interstadials to cold and dry stadials. The DO-12 is the most pronounced MIS 3 interstadial in the record and appears to be marked by a delay of 1000 years between climate enhancement (warmer temperature) and water availability (moisture increase). By combining our speleothem record with other continental and marine archive, the spatial variability of DO changes in Europe during the MIS 3 is defined. A gradual climate deterioration with colder and drier conditions, associated with the Heinrich 4 event, progressed southwards through Europe. This spatial climatic degradation, during the last phase of Neanderthal populations occupation in Europe, provides better environmental constraints for human mobility models. • We study an isotopically equilibrated speleothem covering the MIS 3 in Western Europe. • A temperature differential of ∼7 °C is associated with alternating interstadials to stadials. • DO-12, the most pronounced interstadial, start with a 1000-years delay between climate enhancement and water availability. • A southward gradual climate deterioration with colder and drier conditions is observed through western Europe. • As no comparable southward Neanderthal decline is observed, a climatic role in the Neanderthals' extinction may be excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of the first domesticated animals and crops along the coastal area of Atlantic NW Europe, which triggered the transition from a hunter-gatherer-fisher to a farmer-herder economy, has been debated for many decades among archaeologists. While some advocate a gradual transition in which indigenous hunter-gatherers from the very beginning of the 5th millennium cal BC progressively adopted Neolithic commodities, others are more in favor of a rapid transition near the end of the 5th millennium caused by a further northwest migration of farmers-herders colonizing the lowlands. Here, radiocarbon dated bones from sheep/goat and possibly also cattle are presented which provide the first hard evidence of an early introduction of domesticated animals within a hunter-gatherer context in NW Belgium, situated ca. 80 km north of the agro-pastoral frontier. Based on their isotope signal it is suggested that these first domesticates were probably not merely obtained through exchange with contemporaneous farmers but were kept locally, providing evidence of small-scale local stockbreeding in the lowlands maybe as early as ca. 4800/4600 cal BC. If confirmed by future in-depth isotope analyses, the latter testifies of intense contact and transmission of knowledge in this early contact period, which is also visible in the material culture, such as the lithic and pottery technology. It also implies direct and prolonged involvement of farmer-herders, either through visiting specialists or intermarriage, which follows recent genetic evidence demonstrating much more hunter-gatherer ancestry in early farmer's genes in western Europe compared to central and SE Europe.