Re: Food Culture: The European Mesolithic.


"prd" <X_header@xxxxxxxxxxx> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1p5Jg.6848$5i3.5336@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In sci.archaeology message news:ed1pg8$nda$1@xxxxxxxxx by "Uwe
Müller" <uwemueller@xxxxxxxxxx> . . . :

Sites with good organic preservation come from wetland areas,
today tertiary sites for any food production. You can't take
them to be representing the whole of the LBK settlements without
mentioning the unusual setting.

Cellulose and Collagenous materials are preserved in slightly
acidic bogs and wet lands. Calcerous material is preserved best in
alkaline soils, dry caves, dry and alkaline.

Loess, which is what the LBK sites are on, is acidic. It can get
waterlogged, but usually contains moisture and air. Little organic
preservation.

Mesolithic sites (over here) are usually on sandy ground, on little humps in
the flood plain (Talsandinseln). Acidic soil conditions, well aired, and
with enough moisture to deteriorate anything organic. There are a few sites
though, that could have been founded on moist ground, got and stayed
waterlogged fast, and have good organic preservation. these are the
exceptions, not the normal setting.


Or if I could make this basic judgement, because it seats well
with some of the confusion. Let me argue for a second that
we don't know when precisely the northern migration though the
western corridor took place, it seems by the mesolithic
archaeology that was available that in terms of food culture,
the southwestern mediterranean was on the verge of the
neolithic, they simply were replacing wild versions with
domesticated versions of the animals they hunted. Not only in
the archaeological but in the radiochemical studies the
observation even close to coastal sites of more terrestrial
mammals and less fish, evidence of grass seeds, etc, nuts were
present but less relatively speaking. In the north, at two
sites one radiochemical and the other shells indicate a
stronger reliance on marine foods and nuts than with the
southern half.

You'd have to closely compare the setting of the sites to know
if the differences were between north and south or about coastal
and interior.

You know that we can't do that, for example there were probably
habiations at the edge of the gulf of leon, which disappeared under
the sea these were probably foragers.

If you have published accounts of finds or palaeobotanical analyses, they
can't have disappeared without traces. So there may be (often there are)
uncertainties on the contemporary sea or water levels, but a differentiation
between coastal and inland setting should be possible.


From a cultural point of view if your culture was incipient
agriculture and someone brings seeds that produce more and
behave better, it is a relatively minor shift, at least in a
good growing year, in a bad growing year you might have to
fiddle with percentages. But if the culture had no incipients
agriculture of such grains it could be a severe shift. One can
look at the data and suggest that T.t.m, and T.t.d had problems
in the north, T.t.e. still requires much difficulty to grow in
Ireland. This tells us right off the bat that Triticeae would
be limited in these regions. And yet the population within the
molecular, is showing signs of spreading and relative success,
particularly if you compare them with the nodes in germany and
france. Therefore something this NW population is doing is
contributing to their relative success and probably a reason
why the mesolithic persists a much longer time in this region,
or to put otherwise, relatively speaking neolithic culture is
less successful, or more carefully parts of the neolithic
package are less successful.

That is the gist of the major alternate explanation. A sparsely
settled country, in which neolithicised newcommers began to
occupy areas, that were not really interesting for the
mesolithics. People have been working with that for the last 30
years or so, but it leaves a lot of things unexplained.

I am going to address these issue in another thread dealing with
the special circumstances of Ireland.

I fear, those circumstances are so special, that there will be little on the
problems of the LBK-mesolithic neighbourhood.


Hopefully I have convinced
you by now that T1 taurids were brought into the Ilse at a time
when the channel was present but not horifically restrictive to
travel, one could probably see a potential for travel. Bovids
were successful in southern england, and so was the practice of
dairy. However according to Clinical science 68, 573-579, Bruce
et al. Of the three most tTG reactive sites are dimethyl casien
0.188, Gliadin 0.170, Deamidated gliadin 0.022 and Collagen
0.021. My basic assumption here is that at the
mesolithic/neolithic boundary in NW europe that all negatively
selective factors are present at their maximum extend. The
basic problem is that glaidin-tTG interaction leads intolerance
to other foods. Thus excesses of gliadins can cause allergies
to milk, collagen. These are noted quite frequently. Thus the
basic assumption here is you can have a cattle industry without
a displacement but not a Triticeae and Dairy industry. Ergo I
made the point about increased levels of DQ2.5 in the highlands
and the potential of a mesolithic transition to cattle industry
without the other elements of LBK. (Although I still have no
good explanation about how genetic elements arrived).

The appearance of the neolithic in Britain is a process that is
surely interesting. But it has only very limited bearing on
other regions, as the setting is somewhat special.

The Swiss show, someone once told me, lactose intolerance for
nearly a quarter of the grown up population. If that is anywhere
near the mark, in a dairy farming economy, than economy has only
limited importance on the survival of genetical traits.

Guess what potentiates lactose intolerance? Lactose is easily
dealt with in fermentation.

As the Swiss example shows. And plenty of people can live without milk, or
adapt to milk, if it is the one stable food source there is.

Still, we are talking about the beginning of cattle herding. You can not
take modern adaptions, be they technically, genetic or social, for granted.
For instance, the heifer you shipped over the canal, it would probably have
to be treated as any animal captured by hunting, and be cut up for food, as
there were no other role models or models of social organisation, that could
give you an alternative. Cattle raising would only work in a cattle raising
society.

It would take a lot of development before a group or individual could claim
it as an individual posession, not to have to share it with others for a
BBQ. A climatic warm epoch may have saved them from the dilemma of feeding
in wintertime, but at best it was food.


I remember a lot of remarks on the possibility of a strong
bonding of pre-neolithic people to sites, were grass seeds
could be harvested in worthwhile amounts without any traces
of domestication or regular farming.

I have read some of these papers, but frankly I have to go with
the genetic evidence. For example, the evidence points to
migration either from north africa or from the middle east
after the paleolithic.

Does 'after the paleolithic' exclude the late, youngest or
epipalaeolithic reindeer hunters, the Ahrensburg Group or (after
the French fashion) Ahrensburgien?

The problem is that there is a genetic push eastward, these peoples
who lived in the region after the LGM may have simply migrated
northeastward following prey. I am not an expert on this, and
pretty fascinated with the stuff I read about England and Ireland
and the fact that Ireland had no large game animals. IN fact they
are saying that most of Britians wild animals entered between 10
kya and when the channel opened up. Before we discuss Caribou
someone needs to explain what the restriction of game between an
apparently continental region was.
Two types of animals may have existed, those accoustomed to
coexisting with glaciers at their backsides, and those accoustomed
to much warmer climates, when the glaciers retreated those animals
and their hunters may have retreated to the east, poland or NW
russia. These herds might have come from italy or iberia.

Does spell out as yes, no or don't know?


Polish
A2-B44 6.2% Nodal in Irish, Cornish
A3 B35 6.0% Very low in the west, A3 is a marker of eastern europe
B35 of the balkan region.
A26 B38 5.0% A26 is nodal in the eastern black sea
A2 B60 5.0% similar haps found in SE british, Czech
A3 B7 4.9 Classic marker for arrivals from eastern europe into
central and western europe.
The markers for:
A2-B44, A2-B60 and A3-B7 could be indicative of a migration from
the west. A3 B35
In my model the belgium-czech are atlantics at the LGM, they
progress to the east, anyone to the east of them may have been
pushed further east.

We can follow A3 - B35
Polish (#1) 6.0%
Armenian (#1) 4.6%
Italian (#3) 3.9%
Czech (#7) 3.6%
Greeks (#6) 2.9%
Romania (#6) 2.6%
French (#7) 1.9%
Dane (#8) 2.5%
German (#9) 2.5%
Austrian (#10) 2.6%
Cornish (#10) 2.4%
British (#10) 2.1%
Basque (N/D)
Belgium (N/D)
Spain 1.2%

A2-B44 is troublesome because there are 2 variants of the B44
group.
A2-B44
Cornish (#1) 11.4
Polish (#2) 6.2
Iberian (#1) 5.9 (represents admixture of 2 variant)
Danish (#2) 4.8
Czech (#3) 4.7
Basque (#4) 4.3
Albania (#1) 4.2 (represents SE variant)
French (#2) 4.0
German (#4) 3.7
Italian (#4) 3.2
British (#4) 2.6

I would look more at the rankings on this one

Cornish (#1) 11.4
Polish (#2) 6.2
Danish (#2) 4.8
French (#2) 4.0
Czech (#3) 4.7
Basque (#4) 4.3
German (#4) 3.7
Italian (#4) 3.2
British (#4) 2.6

So that there is a crescent shaped distribution that falls inside
the I/W/C/N crescent.

That appears to suggest a SW to NE relationship.

A2-B60 (B4001)
Czech (#2) 4.8%
Polish (#4) 5.0%
Swedish (#4) 4.9%
Dane (#5) 3.7%
Cornish (#8) 2.8%
Uralic (#9) 2.6%
Austrian (#11) 2.5%
German (#10) 2.1
French 0.9%

I would argue that this represents an early pre-neolithic
branching which introduced this to the NW, the direction is
probably through the passes through czech and slovakia. It
indicates some back and forth gene flow at higher latitudes during
the early period, possibly a route for migrations of animals and
humans.

The slow dissipitation of sedentary HGs and sedentary animals into areas,
that had only known migrating herds and hunters before. That would make
sense.


A3-B7
Irish (#2) and Swiss (#1) are >10%
Austrian (#1) 7.4%
Belgium (#1) 6.0%
Cornish (#3) 5.7
Polish (#5) 4.9%
German (#2) 4.8%
Dane (#4) 4.3%
Armenian (#2) 3.7%
British (#3) 3.4
Czech (#8) 3.1%
French (#4) 2.8%
Albanian 2.6%
Basque 2.5% (shows marked equilibration)
Italian (#11) 1.6%
Greek (#12) 1.3%

These haplotypes are not of SE mediterranean origin.
It is possible they expanded from groups living west of the alps.

Problem. A3-B7 is spread all the way to korea.
A2-B44 is split into 2 groups of discrepant origins.
A2-B60 is spread from western europe to NW native americans.
A3-B35 possibly originated in arabia or middle east. (B35 for
instance in Ireland is very low, B35 is a marker for mediterranea
influence),
The essential problem with working in eastern europe is that
there is no means to leverage the various osscilations that have
moved back and forth over the region. For example Poland and
Uralics all need archaeological background to suggest when
opportunities for northward travel opened up. A2 is not unexpected
as one of the above, its node is in Siberia, close to 60%, B60 is
also high throughout the north, so that it may have been part of
migrating hunters. A3 is likewise old, one of the solid markers of
human occupation of europe. A3-B7 however is multimodal.
In addition many of the Polish haps are result of migrations from
the western baltic (i.e. norse) but A1-b8 is low.

Corresponding to climatic changes archaeologic cultural groups seem to have
expanded into this area from the east or the west. It is (for me) not clear
whether massive movements of people were happening, or if just parts of the
population moved, and others adapted to the new cultural surrounding.
Linguists insist on some population continuity, since without that, older
names for rivers, lakes etc. could not have been transported across the
cultural boundaries.


I am hesitant about going into eastern europe in detail, except for
the anamolous find, the picture needs alot more typing done as to
have a better understanding of linkage disequilibration and %RLD in
populations also more archaeology to contain how people might have
spread. There is a rather amourphous and anceint genetic
relationship within the Ural-Baltic-Black Sea region that links
itself to far off groups like the eskimoes. I have tried to parse
out of the database the other 33% compliment of the Swedes and have
not been able to find anything close to a source even combinations
of groups does not suffice. A recent study revealed that Norwegians
and Swedes are virtually identical suggesting a problem with recent
admixture theories. There is also the issue of the mtDNA X
haplogroup that appears to linke NA with the region, but lacks any
kind of tangible mechanism outside of common ancestors from africa
in more or _less_ recent times.
Western europe is nicer at least in the regard that the
relationships are clearer and tangible. Even with some large
unknowns.

So we'll have to wait for data from ancient people, to know what really
happened.

have fun

Uwe Mueller




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