Incest in dynastic elite in Megalithic Newgrange

That study contradicts the information from Wikipedia.

Mesolithic

  • c. 7400 BC: A 12 m long monolith probably weighing around 15,000 kg found submerged 40 m under water in the Strait of Sicily south-west of Sicily. Its origin and purpose are unknown.[12]
Neolithic



If the Sicilian monolith is really that old that would mean it pre-dates Neolithic farmers in the area and is older than the Atlit Yam site.


"The obtained age for the PVB (Pantelleria Vecchia Bank, Sicily Channel) site places it within the Mesolithic ... the PVB site is older than the Neolithic Atlit Yam site off the north coast of Israel, dated between 6900 and 6300 B.C."


https://www.docdroid.net/SSF1Zmv/sicilian-megalith-pdf
 
If the Sicilian monolith is really that old that would mean it pre-dates Neolithic farmers in the area and is older than the Atlit Yam site.


"The obtained age for the PVB (Pantelleria Vecchia Bank, Sicily Channel) site places it within the Mesolithic ... the PVB site is older than the Neolithic Atlit Yam site off the north coast of Israel, dated between 6900 and 6300 B.C."


https://www.docdroid.net/SSF1Zmv/sicilian-megalith-pdf

Yes, intriguing, isn't it? Why would megalithic culture start on a tiny isolate island like Pantelleria, then nothing else happen for 1000 years at best? I am not sure how they manage to carbon date a stone that was sitting at the bottom of the sea. If they are right it might be a very early offshoot of Near Eastern farmers that didn't leave any other trace...
 
Yes, they came with Neolithic farmers. The oldest Megalithic sites in Europe are in Malta and Iberia, then they spread northwards. Somewhere in Iberia and/or France local I2a hunter-gatherers integrated Neolithic farming societies and their paternal lineages spread to Britain and Ireland.

You right. More concerning the first cultural aspect, but the generalisation of megalithism after the 4000 BC in N-WEurope seems kind of holdup by Mesolithic males Y-I2a (mostly in France and Great Isles), with maybe a new phylosophy, at least at first sight. they seem having other conceptions fo their rapport to the soil and the lineages, compared to first Neolithic people.
Surely sailors and shores oriented too, before spread more inland, until W-Germany.
 
But as one could think, these differences with the bulk of Neolithic Europeans is that the most of these last ones came for the most from W or WC Anatolia and expanded through interland, when the source of these megaliths seem more southern in Near-East and passed across seas or along shores.
 
Yes, intriguing, isn't it? Why would megalithic culture start on a tiny isolate island like Pantelleria, then nothing else happen for 1000 years at best? I am not sure how they manage to carbon date a stone that was sitting at the bottom of the sea. If they are right it might be a very early offshoot of Near Eastern farmers that didn't leave any other trace...

The dating is based entirely on their estimate of when the area was last above water.

It seems more likely that the monolith (if it is man-made) was being transported by boat and it fell into the water/ the boat sank.

Megalithic stones on Malta have circular holes carved into them, maybe similar to the holes on the monolith. Given how close it is to Malta this seems plausible.
 
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I can't find solid evidence for how old the Almendres Cromlech actually is... There are no radiocarbon dates..

One of the references on wikipedia states that "the site" dates from "the end of the 6th to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC", whilst another says it dates from 4000-3000 BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almendres_Cromlech#History

According to this paper:

"There is no direct radiocarbon dating available from these sites, and the established chronology arises mainly from materials found in excavations. The chronology has also been set by association with nearby settlements or surface remains."

Whilst this paper claims that megalithic standing stones were first erected in Spain by hunter-gatherers, before the arrival of agriculture:

"In the extreme southwest of Atlantic Europe, a dense network of large permanent settlement sites with standing stones decorated with recurrent symbols has been identified. Chronologically, these settlements date, at least, from the 7th millennium BCE and are substantially older than the first evidence of cereals and domesticated animals in SW Iberia."


Standing stones might be significantly older than megalithic tombs, dolmens, passage graves etc. Most of the samples in the the Paulsson study are from the latter type of megalithic construction, and the study indicates that they originated in NW France.
 
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I can't find solid evidence for how old the Almendres Cromlech actually is... There are no radiocarbon dates..

One of the references on wikipedia states that "the site" dates from "the end of the 6th to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC", whilst another says it dates from 4000-3000 BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almendres_Cromlech#History

According to this paper:

"There is no direct radiocarbon dating available from these sites, and the established chronology arises mainly from materials found in excavations. The chronology has also been set by association with nearby settlements or surface remains."

Whilst this paper claims that megalithic standing stones were first erected in Spain by hunter-gatherers, before the arrival of agriculture:

"In the extreme southwest of Atlantic Europe, a dense network of large permanent settlement sites with standing stones decorated with recurrent symbols has been identified. Chronologically, these settlements date, at least, from the 7th millennium BCE and are substantially older than the first evidence of cereals and domesticated animals in SW Iberia."


Standing stones might be significantly older than megalithic tombs, dolmens, passage graves etc. Most of the samples in the the Paulsson study are from the latter type of megalithic construction, and the study indicates that they originated in NW France.

I guess that the only way to know for sure if it was Mesolithic Europeans or Near Eastern newcomers who built these early megaliths is to test the DNA of local skeletons from that period - if any is available.

But it would be an amazing coincidence that megaliths appeared independently in the Near East and the western fringe of Europe and that both people converged into a greater Megalithic culture.
 
I guess that the only way to know for sure if it was Mesolithic Europeans or Near Eastern newcomers who built these early megaliths is to test the DNA of local skeletons from that period - if any is available.

So far all of the samples from megalithic burials belong to I/I2a, except for one H2 in north-central Spain and two H2a in southeast Ireland. H2/H2a might have brought a megalithic culture from the Levant, however the megalithic culture in western Europe seems to have been completely dominated by males of european hunter-gatherer origin.

I went through the Olalde 2019 megalithic samples from Spain and again they are all I2a/I. All the male samples from Neolithic Britain are I2a/I, except for one non-megalithic sample listed as CT. And now we have I2a from the largest megalithic tombs such as Newgrange.

This is quite different to Neolithic farmers migrating to Europe, largely replacing the hunter-gatherers and then building the megaliths. Instead the hunter-gatherers seem to have dominated the farmers in megalithic areas and taken women from them. It's not clear whether this was peaceful or violent. Either way the hunter-gatherers don't appear to have been integrated into a farmer society, instead a small minority of Neolithic males and significantly more Neolithic females appear to have been incorporated into a society dominated by hunter-gatherer-origin males.

Malta might be a different story... I hope someone does a study on that soon.
 
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So far all of the samples from megalithic burials belong to I/I2a, except for one H2 in north-central Spain and two H2a in southeast Ireland. H2/H2a might have brought a megalithic culture from the Levant, however the megalithic culture in western Europe seems to have been completely dominated by males of european hunter-gatherer origin.
This is quite different to Neolithic farmers migrating to Europe, largely replacing the hunter-gatherers and then building the megaliths. Instead the hunter-gatherers seem to have dominated the farmers in megalithic areas and taken women from them. It's not clear whether this was done violently or not. Either way the hunter-gatherers don't appear to have been integrated into a farmer society, instead a small minority of Neolithic males and significantly more Neolithic females appear to have been incorporated into a society dominated by hunter-gatherer-origin males.
Malta might be a different story... I hope someone does a study on that soon.
the oldest H2 individual is a HG in Israel, who lived there at the time of PPNB
PPNB Israel Motza [I0867 / Motz 1] M 7300-6750 BCE H2 M2713+, M2896+, M2936+, M2942+, M2992+, M3070+ (H), P96+ (H2). It was not derived for any downstream mutations K1a4b 772778 Lazaridis 2016

he was probably not Natufian in origin, these were E1b1b1,
but more likely he was derived from the Kebaran HG with bow and arrow

the bow and arrow probably came from India
check this thread
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...d-in-Sri-Lanka?p=606086&viewfull=1#post606086
 
for bow and arrow it looks like magdalenians didn't have it, the hunted with the atlatl, and they were replaced by by Villabrunans who hunted with bow and arrow (Ahrensburg culture)
we know the Villabruna clade spread from SE Europe around 15 ka, that is were they picked up bow and arrow, which allready existed in Zarzian and Kebaran culture

So you're suggesting a much earlier relationship between WHGs (I2a) and Levant HGs (H2)... ?
 
The R-V88 guys, and R1b in general seems to be eastern shifted relative to their more western HG I2 counterparts. The oldest western most sample is linked with Cardial Ware with E-V13 haplotypes (if my memory serves), suggesting a link to at least the Balkans, which would make sense considering the placement of other mesolithic R-V88. In terms of how it arrived in the Fulani, I think northern Africa or the Levant make the most sense, maybe even Egypt. The lack of the finds of ancient R1b-V88 outside of Europe is puzzling, but we know it must have been there due to the deep placement in central Africa. Modern placement has it throughout the Levant and North Africa, but much more sporadically than the ubiquitous J1/J2/E1b branches

I suspect despite being linked with some early mesolithic cultures of the Balkans, R-V88 became linked with herding cultures such as those of Africa, but also those of Sardinia. It seems the trend is with nomadic pastoralism, rather than sedentary farmers. Later M269+ seems to be the same, albeit maybe coincidentally.
 
So far all of the samples from megalithic burials belong to I/I2a, except for one H2 in north-central Spain and two H2a in southeast Ireland. H2/H2a might have brought a megalithic culture from the Levant, however the megalithic culture in western Europe seems to have been completely dominated by males of european hunter-gatherer origin.

I went through the Olalde 2019 megalithic samples from Spain and again they are all I2a/I. All the male samples from Neolithic Britain are I2a/I, except for one non-megalithic sample listed as CT. And now we have I2a from the largest megalithic tombs such as Newgrange.

This is quite different to Neolithic farmers migrating to Europe, largely replacing the hunter-gatherers and then building the megaliths. Instead the hunter-gatherers seem to have dominated the farmers in megalithic areas and taken women from them. It's not clear whether this was peaceful or violent. Either way the hunter-gatherers don't appear to have been integrated into a farmer society, instead a small minority of Neolithic males and significantly more Neolithic females appear to have been incorporated into a society dominated by hunter-gatherer-origin males.

Malta might be a different story... I hope someone does a study on that soon.

Y-DNA is not all. The mtDNA and autosomal DNA of Megalithic people is clearly predominantly from Near Eastern farmers, even in Britain and Ireland.
 
Y-DNA is not all. The mtDNA and autosomal DNA of Megalithic people is clearly predominantly from Near Eastern farmers, even in Britain and Ireland.

That could happen as a result of hunter-gatherers killing farmer males and taking their women, or it could happen through a more peaceful process, maybe an exchange of women. In either case the DNA evidence indicates that the megalithic culture was dominated by hunter-gatherer male lineages and that near-eastern male lineages were excluded, with the exception of some H2 males.
 
That could happen as a result of hunter-gatherers killing farmer males and taking their women, or it could happen through a more peaceful process, maybe an exchange of women. In either case the DNA evidence indicates that the megalithic culture was dominated by hunter-gatherer male lineages and that near-eastern male lineages were excluded, with the exception of some H2 males.

I doubt these processes were ever peaceful intermarriage examples. Do you think East Asian K2b men excluding West Eurasian men to form ANE was also peaceful or an example of racial dominance? Somehow I doubt any group wants their lineages to be breeded out.
 
"We generated genome sequence data from human remains, corresponding to 24 individuals from five megalithic burial sites, encompassing the widespread tradition of megalithic construction in northern and western Europe, and analyzed our results in relation to the existing European paleogenomic data. ... In relation to the tomb populations, we find significantly more males than females buried in the megaliths of the British Isles. The genetic data show close kin relationships among the individuals buried within the megaliths, and for the Irish megaliths, we found a kin relation between individuals buried in different megaliths. We also see paternal continuity through time, including the same Y-chromosome haplotypes reoccurring. These observations suggest that the investigated funerary monuments were associated with patrilineal kindred groups."

Sanchez-Quinto et al. 2019

"Although co-operative ideology has often been emphasised as a driver of megalith construction, the human expenditure required to erect the largest monuments has led some researchers to emphasize hierarchy—of which the most extreme case is a small elite marshalling the labour of the masses. Here we present evidence that a social stratum of this type was established during the Neolithic period in Ireland. We sampled 44 whole genomes, among which we identify the adult son of a first-degree incestuous union from remains that were discovered within the most elaborate recess of the Newgrange passage tomb. Socially sanctioned matings of this nature are very rare, and are documented almost exclusively among politico-religious elites—specifically within polygynous and patrilineal royal families that are headed by god-kings. We identify relatives of this individual within two other major complexes of passage tombs 150 km to the west of Newgrange, as well as dietary differences and fine-scale haplotypic structure (which is unprecedented in resolution for a prehistoric population) between passage tomb samples and the larger dataset, which together imply hierarchy. (...)


We find evidence of both distant kinship and societal structure between another pair of distinct, but neighbouring, megaliths (10 km apart)—the Poulnabrone portal tomb and the Parknabinnia court tomb. Their sampled cohorts (the majority of which are males) show a significant difference in the frequency of two Y chromosome haplogroups, as well as a dietary difference. Given that there is a lack of close kin within either tomb, we exclude small family groups as their sole proprietors and interpret our findings as the result of broader social differentiation with an emphasis on patrilineal descent. The double occurrence of a rare Y haplogroup (H2a) among the individualized male Linkardstown burials of the southeast of the island provides further evidence of the importance of patrilineal ancestry in these societies, as does the predominance of a single Y haplogroup (I-M284) across the Irish and British Neolithic population."

Cassidy et al. 2020
 
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"One of the most striking features of the Atlantic facade in the fifth and fourth millennia was the way in which the disparate communities honoured their ancestors by depositing their remains in collective tombs often built of large stones (megaliths). The earliest manifestations of this phenomenon are found in Portugal, Galicia, and Brittany in the period 4700-4500 BC, but the rite of collective burial in graves sometimes lined with stone slabs begins in the Mesolithic period and is evident in shell midden sites found in the Muge and Sado valleys in Portugal and on the islands of Hoedic and Teviec off the south coast of Brittany. At Moita do Sebastiao in the Muge twenty-six graves containing fifty-nine adults were found, and not far away eight children were buried in individual pits arranged in a semicircle. At Teviec there were ten graves with twenty-three individuals, while at Hoedic nine graves contained a total of thirteen individuals. At both these sites there are strong hints that the shell midden formed after the cemetery had been established. So what can be made of these observations? One obvious conclusion is that, by the late stage of the Mesolithic in these two regions, foragers were stating their group identities and their claims to place and territory by creating cemeteries, and they were returning to those places for long periods each year, over many generations, to congregate and to feast – activities which led to the accumulation of vast mounds of debris, mainly composed of marine molluscs. it may be that the mounds were deliberately built up to be symbolic of group stability.

We have already seen that in Portugal groups of farmers were moving in soon after 5500 BC, gradually taking over the land until about 4750 BC, when the lifestyle of the last foragers, in the Sado valley, came to an end. In Brittany the Neolithic penetration seems to have begun about 5300 BC, with the shell middens ceasing to be used by 4800 BC. In both regions the long period when farmers and hunter-gatherers coexisted was a time for them to learn form each other. In central southern Portugal the farmers who had originally buried their dead in ones or twos in rock shelters began to adopt a more collective style fo burial. First, small closed cists were used, but later more monumental structures were erected comprising megalithic chambers reached by a short passage allowing access to the burials. The earliest of these early passage graves probably date to the mid-fifth millennium or a little earlier. In Galicia in the north-western corner of Iberia a similar sequence can be recognized. Here the earliest passage graves so far dated belong to the early fourth millennium. …

There has been much debate about the origin of the menhirs and tertres (long burial mounds) in Brittany. One possibility is that both originate in the local Mesolithic tradition. There is an alignment of small stelae at Douet on the island of Hoedic, associated with Neolithic pottery with radiocarbon dates of 4708-4536 BC, which might relate to the late use of the shell midden. Similarly, the stone cists containing burials beneath the shell midden at Teviec could be the prototypes for the cists beneath the tertres.”

Cunliffe 2017, p.122





“The discovery of the Danish cemetery of Vedbael-Bogebakken (5300-4500 BC) in 1975 and the Swedish Sketholm cemeteries (5800-4300 BC) in the early 1980s, along with a reassessment of the Karelian cemetery of Oleneostrovski Mogilnik (7000-6000 BC) led to a revival of interest in the Mesolithic and stimulated a reassessment of Holocene hunter-gatherer society … several authors viewed the appearance of the cemeteries and associated patterning of grave goods as reflecting the presence of ‘complex’ hunter-gatherers, characterized by social inequality. … Possible evidence of ranked societies cited by these authors include major wealth differences at Oleneostrovski, Karelia and the presence of rich child burials at the Breton sites of Teviec (5600-4500 BC) and Hoedic (6000-3750 BC). These could indicate inherited status since young children would be unable to accrue wealth through actions during their lifetime. Shulting (1996) also suggests the possibility of ascribed status at Teviec and Hoedic, based on the patterned association of antlers, bone pins, and flint blades. Newell and Constandse-Westerman (1988: 171) have argued more forcefully that mortuary variation at the Skatehold cemeteries reflected a ranked society. Moreover they also identify an increase in social stratification during the later Mesolithic. …

Over the past ten years there has been a subtle shift in the way that power in the Mesolithic has been conceptualized. Rather than focus on social status, new work has concentrated on the ritual power of shamans. Increasingly, rich or unusual graves are seen as indicating the presence of ritual specialists rather than high-ranking social leaders ……

The location of cemeteries has been seen as significant mainly in terms of the territories they marked. The coastal location of the Scandinavian cemeteries, for example, has been linked to the need to claim areas rich in resources as ancestral land. … Many cemeteries have a strong association with water… Zvelebil has linked the strong association of death and water with the ‘northern hunter-gatherer cosmology’. Amongst contemporary and historic northern Eurasian groups, water was seen as an entrance to the underworld, the world of the dead. …

It has also been suggested that shell middens containing human burials were special places, perhaps analogous to the long mounds and cairns of Neolithic Europe. The conscious decision to accumulate shell material in a midden has been seen as significant and monumental in nature. Thomas and Tilley (1993) argue that the connections made between feasting, ritual, death, and burning at Teviec and Hoedic can also be seen at Neolithic sites, while Kirk (1993) has pointed out similarities between the arrangement of pits, hearths, and cists at Teviec and Hoedic and local Neolithic monuments.”


Tarlow et al. 2013 p.347
 
Possibly related:


Warren Field Mesolithic calendar

"The capacity to conceptualise and measure time is amongst the most important achievements of human societies, and the issue of when time was 'created' by humankind is critical in understanding how society has developed. A pit alignment, recently excavated in Aberdeenshire (Scotland), provides an intriguing contribution to this debate. This structure, dated to the 8th millennium BC, has been re-analysed and appears to possess basic calendrical functions. The site may therefore provide the earliest evidence currently available for 'time reckoning' as the pit group appears to mimic the phases of the Moon and is structured to track lunar months. It also aligns on the south east horizon and a prominent topographic point associated with sunrise on the midwinter solstice. In doing so the monument anticipates problems associated with simple lunar calendars by providing an annual astronomic correction in order to maintain the link between the passage of time indicated by the Moon, the asynchronous solar year, and the associated seasons. The evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies in Scotland had both the need and ability to track time across the year, and also perhaps within the month, and that this occurred at a period nearly five thousand years before the first formal calendars were created in Mesopotamia."


Gaffney et al. 2013


 
I doubt these processes were ever peaceful intermarriage examples.

possible evidence for intermarriage?:

"This paper presents and discusses the results of a palaeodietary and AMS dating study of burials from the Mesolithic sites of Téviec and Hoëdic, Brittany, France. In common with other Mesolithic coastal populations in Europe, isotopic analysis demonstrates the significant use of marine resources by the sites’ inhabitants. Greater interest, however, is provided by the inter- and intrasite details of the analysis. There is an unexpected difference between the two sites, with the inhabitants of Hoëdic deriving 70 to 80% of their protein from the sea, while the inhabitants of Téviec appear to show a more balanced use of marine and terrestrial protein. At the intrasite level, women, and particularly young women, were found to exhibit less use of marine foods. It is suggested that this could indicate an exogamous, patrilocal marriage pattern, with some women marrying in from more inland communities. The AMS dating program shows that the sites were roughly contemporaneous but were used for burial over a longer period of time than originally anticipated. Two cases could suggest the reuse of graves after the passage of centuries, a practice more typically associated with Neolithic passage graves."

Schulting 2001

 
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Hm. What I've read of the WHGs has mentioned that most of them were genetically homogeneous, even though they covered a fairly large area. Now we are seeing the first megaliths show up in locations on the shores but the oldest ones are very far away from each other. Are there a large number of older megalithic monuments waiting to be discovered by archaeologists, or did the first ones really show up in such widely separated locations? And now the connection with shell middens.

I am starting to speculate that the Atlantic culture WHGs before the arrival of the EEF had a very high degree of maritime orientation. Exchanging genes and ideas over large coastal areas. Could explain a bit of how they were able to do a male-dominated takeover of the EEF, whereas the hunter-gatherers that encountered the central European EEF expansion never managed anything like that.

Connected to that, researchers in Norway has recently focused more on the amount and size of the ships shown in Norwegian petroglyps, as well as the fact that when compensating for the rise of the land over time, nearly all of them turn out to be created on the shoreline. (Google translate required, sorry) That seems to be a bit later though with the really large ships being pictured from about 2000 BCE. They'd not have sprung into exisetence ex nihilo though, there must have been a long maritime tradition to get to them.

Also, this does make me wonder if the WHGs brought their own language with them when the male-dominated takeover of the EEF happened. Similar things have happened with elite languages in the past. Previously, I've sort of headcanoned Basque to be a remnant of the EEF language family, but this does hint that the old theory that Basque represented a stone-age language in Europe might be at least partially true.

EDIT: And while I am writing Philjames100 posts an excerpt from a paper showing very high utilization of marine resources:)
 

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