Egtved Girl-Bronze Age Find in Denmark

Angela said:

The ancient dna of the Egtved girl found in a Bronze Age context (1400 BC) in Denmark has been analyzed.

This is the link to the paper:
http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150521/srep10431/full/srep10431.html

This is the link to the supplementary info:
http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150521/srep10431/full/srep10431.html#supplementary-information

Here is the abstract:
"Ancient human mobility at the individual level is conventionally studied by the diverse application of suitable techniques (e.g. aDNA, radiogenic strontium isotopes, as well as oxygen and lead isotopes) to either hard and/or soft tissues. However, the limited preservation of coexisting hard and soft human tissues hampers the possibilities of investigating high-resolution diachronic mobility periods in the life of a single individual. Here, we present the results of a multidisciplinary study of an exceptionally well preserved circa 3.400-year old Danish Bronze Age female find, known as the Egtved Girl. We applied biomolecular, biochemical and geochemical analyses to reconstruct her mobility and diet. We demonstrate that she originated from a place outside present day Denmark (the island of Bornholm excluded), and that she travelled back and forth over large distances during the final months of her life, while consuming a terrestrial diet with intervals of reduced protein intake. We also provide evidence that all her garments were made of non-locally produced wool. Our study advocates the huge potential of combining biomolecular and biogeochemical provenance tracer analyses to hard and soft tissues of a single ancient individual for the reconstruction of high-resolution human mobility. "

I think that about says it all from what I can see. I don't know if they didn't try or just couldn't get mtDna and things like pigmentation snps. They are saying that going by the current state of the hair she probably had light brown or blonde hair.

This isn't at all how I imagined the life of the "elite" at this late date in the Bronze Age, particularly in terms of nutrition, but I guess there's the Bronze Age and the Bronze Age; it all depends on the place and the specific culture.

Click to expand...

"she travelled back and forth over large distances during the final months of her life"

Elite or elite merchant?

Fire Haired14 said:

You're not interpreting me correctly. I'm not saying women shouldn't have a chose as to what to wear. I'm saying if they chose to reveal their bodies, they have no grounds to complain about men starring at them or saying things about them which make them feel uncomfortable. I think there's in-balance with news about this subject. The woman is always put in the right which isn't true in real life.

Anyone who claims I'm sexiest is very wrong. Why, because I said men aren't always wrong? Think it through.

Click to expand...

"if they chose to reveal their bodies"

Reveal how much though? Some men think faces or ankles would be too much so who decides?

If the rule is each individual man gets to decide how much revealed is too much then women have no protection from the law at all.

So I think generally men should take pride in self-control and simply chill and enjoy the view.

Greying Wanderer said:

"if they chose to reveal their bodies"

Reveal how much though? Some men think faces or ankles would be too much so who decides?

If the rule is each individual man gets to decide how much revealed is too much then women have no protection from the law at all.

So I think generally men should take pride in self-control and simply chill and enjoy the view.

Click to expand...

I didn't say anything about controlling what women wear. I said they shouldn't complain about feeling uncomfortable about men looking at them, because they decided to wear what they wear.

concerning the "skirt" or "rock" of the Egtved woman, if what I had under my eyes what the very one of the woman in cause, it was described in a book written by Wilfried MENGHIN in 1994 about Celts, Germans an Romans - it was assigned to a "Jung Frau" of Egtved in the book, what does not seem to correspond to the age given to the female of the study. in the same book MENGHIN showed other women's dress BUT FROM GERMANY BRONZE were longer, almost covering the feet. the survey discussed here is more about social life than about classical biology.
about women dress I think males have no excuse to support a bad deportment concerning short dressed women: in Africa some ethnies wear or wore alsmost no dress and men are/were not always staring at them or doing worse to them... women's "ambigu" attitude is more a problem than the dress I think, and never an excuse to abusing

Fire Haired14 said:

I didn't say anything about controlling what women wear. I said they shouldn't complain about feeling uncomfortable about men looking at them, because they decided to wear what they wear.

Click to expand...

Fair enough... I actually agree on some level. This "I don't feel safe" stuff has gone way too far, in my opinion. However, there's staring for a few seconds, or blowing a fingertip kiss, or calling out "Ciao Bella", which I used to quite enjoy, frankly, and being a perv, to use modern parlance. Shouting out obscene comments or suggestions, or coming in close and personal, as you might say, is gross, disgusting, and totally out of line. There are men, especially in places like New York City where there are a lot of men from cultures where it's considered acceptable, or whose women do indeed go around in tents, who will harass any woman who has a good body and isn't wearing a tent. She doesn't have to go around half naked.

What I'm saying is that what is considered acceptable in terms of dress is culturally determined. Women in Napoleonic Europe, as I posted before, I think, used to wear Muslin dresses, and some of them sponged them down with water. Things really changed with Victoria, although even then the bodices of evening dresses were pretty low cut. That was the custom, and it wasn't considered appropriate for men to lean in and drool then either.

You also have to consider that in different eras, i.e. Shakespearean England with its codpieces, or Medieval Europe when men wore very short tunics and very tight hose to show off their "assets" and also the fact that they possessed well turned legs, men also dressed or "undressed" to attract attention. Even until relatively recently there was a big difference between a man's bathing costume depending on whether he was from northern Europe or southern Europe.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Queen Elizabeth's "favorite":


Charles V-Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor:


I think it was Charles IX of France who used to have to wear padded hose because his legs lacked muscle definition.

There are social norms in how one dresses, and social norms about the appropriate response to seeing an attractive person. It's unfortunate, in my opinion, if in the west we get to the point that men can't look for more than a second, or pay compliments to women, without being accused of sexual harassment, but I don't make the rules.

Is there actually a lot of these clothes left? Or anything, for that matter? What is interesting is that a colossal industry and trade network was build around the production and trade of - if this is the correct english word - broadcloth. Flemish cities, and others like Dutch Leiden, turned wealthy because of it. Hanze cities traded wool and cloth between them and the Stahlhof/Steelyard. Whenever you visit the splendor of these cities, be it Lubeck or Gent, you see the pride of the cities, all built on wool and the want for the cloth you see above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcloth

Also, anyone that ever wore a tweed jacket knows that woolen clothing is warm, if not hot. That also could be the reason for the skirt length.

Fire Haired14 said:

Tacitus didn't think dowry given to women from a man was strange. I'm pretty sure that's what everyone does. He thought the ideas and symbolism beyond German dowry was strange.

Click to expand...

Thats what I thought too. Dowry should be a pretty Indo European thing, even Caucasians and some Semites do it (as far as I know). Heck it is still common in my culture. The parents of the groom buy the future bride jewelery such as gold chains, rings and other stuff. It stays at the hand of the bride for the case of "bad days" or when she becomes a widow. However when she really becomes a widow she is considered part of the family/community anyways and the parents of the groom are responsible for her and her children. But it's not only paid by the parents, during the wedding all guiest and the whole community gives the new pair, money and other jewelerys so that they can build up their new live on it.

Angela said:

There are social norms in how one dresses, and social norms about the appropriate response to seeing an attractive person. It's unfortunate, in my opinion, if in the west we get to the point that men can't look for more than a second, or pay compliments to women, without being accused of sexual harassment, but I don't make the rules.

Click to expand...

There might be a thin line between a complement and harassment. Young handsome man can say much more and a girl will be flattered, when not handsome man will be slapped in the face, not mentioning that older gentleman could be accused of pedophilia doing the same. Just saying.

Alan said:

Thats what I thought too. Dowry should be a pretty Indo European thing, even Caucasians and some Semites do it. Heck it is still common in my culture. The parents of the groom buy the future bride jewelery such as gold chains, rings and other stuff. It stays at the hand of the bride for the case of "bad days" or when she becomes a widow. However when she really becomes a widow she is considered part of the family/community anyways and the parents of the groom are responsible for her and her children. But it's not only paid by the parents, during the wedding all guiest and the whole community gives the new pair, money and other jewelerys so that they can build up their new live on it.

Click to expand...

I think Dowry is very common around the world. I was under impression that in agricultural societies father of the bride was paying it, while in hunter-gatherer tribes father of the groom did. In Norther Europe it might have been mixed.

LeBrok said:

I think Dowry is very common around the world. I was under impression that in agricultural societies father of the bright was paying it, while in hunter-gatherer tribes father of the groom did. In Norther Europe it might have been mixed.

Click to expand...

Downery, even though moslty, doesn't come exclusively from the groom family. The family of the bride also gives some to their daughter as well as the community because the bride is considered as part of the family and tribe of the groom from now on. However the bride price is exclusively payed by the family of the groom as compensation for the loss of a girl from their community.

I would rather say the opposite. Neolithic cultures were more "gender equal" compared to H&G. Therefore it's more logical that agricultural societies the parents of the groom pay, because the woman has more value cpmpared to H&G.

However in Hunters and Gatherer societies it would be the parents of the bride. Makes more sense. Even among some modern H&G tribes in Africa and even India as far to Afghanistan. the family of the bride pays money to the family of the groom.

Another indication that bride price etc is more of an H&G thing is that Caucasians, most Afro_Asiatic tribes and Indo Europeans (all agricultural societies) have it.

I even remember a documentation from few years ago about first farmers in Anatolia. In a scene they said the family of the groom payed domestic animals as bride price.

Alan said:

Downery, even though moslty, doesn't come exclusively from the groom family. The family of the bride also gives some to their daughter as well as the community because the bride is considered as part of the family and tribe of the groom from now on. However the bride price is exclusively payed by the family of the groom as compensation for the loss of a girl from their community.

I would rather say the opposite. Neolithic cultures were more "gender equal" compared to H&G. Therefore it's more logical that agricultural societies the parents of the groom pay, because the woman has more value.

Click to expand...

I'm having a second thought about this. I think that in basic HG tribes there was no dowry system at all. It started in farmers and herders societies together with ownership of animals, land and other goods. And together with arranged marriages.

However in Hunters and Gatherer societies it would be the parents of the bride. Makes more sense. Even among some modern H&G tribes in Africa and even India as far to Afghanistan. the family of the bride pays money to the family of the groom.

Another indication that bride price etc is more of an H&G thing is that Caucasians, most Afro_Asiatic tribes and Indo Europeans (all agricultural societies) have it.

I even remember a documentation from few years ago about first farmers in Anatolia. In a scene they said the family of the groom payed domestic animals for the bride.

Click to expand...

There is one thing to consider, maybe. Times of war create shortage of men, therefore making a man more "pricey" than a woman. In times of peace there are more men than women due to high mortality during pregnancy and birth. Well at least it used to be like this till modern times. Making a woman more desirable than a man. I wonder if peaceful or violent history of a country or a region set these dowry traditions in place?

LeBrok:I'm having a second thought about this. I think that in basic HG tribes there was no dowry system at all. It started in farmers and herders societies together with ownership of animals, land and other goods. And together with arranged marriages.

Click to expand...

I would tend to agree. What "property" does a H/G culture really have? In trying to think of examples, the Plains Indians came to mind, where the man would give some horses to the bride's father, so a "bride price" of a type, but they weren't really hunter-gatherers, certainly not after the arrival of the Europeans.

I wasn't sure, so I looked it up. If this article is still valid, things are a little more complicated but it still isn't the norm.

View attachment 7260
https://books.google.com/books?id=C...exchange in hunter gatherer societies&f=false

Bride service:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_service

As the article points out, an example can be found in the Bible, although that is in the context of a pastoral society, where Jacob has to work for Laban for 14 years before he can marry Rachel.

"Bride wealth" seems to be a related term in that it still flows to the bride's family, but in this case it is usually wealth transferred from the groom's family to the wife's family.

So, perhaps the "dowry" is what actually became popular in agricultural societies. It seems to have been known from the days of Babylon.

According to this article, one of the leading anthropologists studying these practices believes that it developed as a way of allowing for female inheritance of parental property, and furthermore he claims to see a correlation with "plough" agriculture versus "hoe" agriculture, with the practice becoming more prevalent as farming became more sophisticated and productive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry

" Goody notes that the sexual division of labour varies in intensive plough agriculture and extensive shifting horticulture. In sparsely populated regions where shifting cultivation takes place, most of the work is done by women. These are the societies that give brideprice. Boserup further associates shifting horticulture with the practice of polygamy, and hence bridewealth is paid as a compensation to her family for the loss of her labour. In plough agriculture farming is largely men's work; this is where dowry is given.^[10] In contrast, plough agriculture is associated with private property and marriage tends to be monogamous, to keep the property within the nuclear family. Close family are the preferred marriage partners so as to keep property within the group.^[11]"

LeBrok said:

There is one thing to consider, maybe. Times of war create shortage of men, therefore making a man more "pricey" than a woman. In times of peace there are more men than women due to high mortality during pregnancy and birth. Well at least it used to be like this till modern times. Making a woman more desirable than a man. I wonder if peaceful or violent history of a country or a region set these dowry traditions in place?

Click to expand...

Hmm to be honest I doubt this. And I even think it's exactly the opposite. I don't remember a time when there was peace in my region.

I think war is one of the main reasons why bride prices get high. Remember you need offsprings to keep up with war. For that you only need allot of women but only one man.

However what could effect this tradition and change it to paying for the groom, could indead be a shortage of men. I don't think surplus of females or war determines this but shortage of men might be a reason.

I remember back when I asked my father about this stuff he told me, back at that time females were happy if they could get a husband, because there was some shortage compared to women. However it would still be tradition that the groom parents pay dowry for the female.

The only way you could tell that there was shortage of men, was when the parents of my father didn't had to pay bride price. But in no way would the family of my father asked for dowry for their son that is simply completely against the tradition.

The thing that the bride from now on belongs to the grooms community, that is true but doesn't mean the bride lost contact to her own community. Marriage between two different communities was and is still often a way to build up alliances/relationship between two communities. It's like not only two persons but two whole families/comunities marry.

Perhaps it all started as a wealth transfer from parents to kids, to give them a kick-start in life. It was valid in HGs, though with much limited form, because they never owned much. Later and in more recent times, in patriarchal system of inheritance, groom was bringing land into equation, and family of bride chipped in other possessions, like livestock and money. I think the base of this custom is to secure new family in making.
Through times it got twisted in various ways depending on supply and demand of potential grooms and brides, extended family benefiting, marriage contracts between families when kids were in very young age, etc, and other derivative traditions.
At the end of a day, once a tradition is in place, people go with the flow and don't ask questions.