Släktskap och neolitiska kulturer

Abstract

Kinship and Neolithic cultures. As a result of their alkaline soil, due to limestone bedrock, the two Swedish islands of Öland and Gotland, are locations where bone is well preserved. Stable isotope investigations have shown that there were two contemporary populations during Middle Neolithic on the islands. One population was buried in megalithic graves, and shows evidence of a subsistence lifestyle with high proportion of terrestrial food, most probable from agriculture. The other population has had a lifestyle based on marine subsistence, and buried their dead in earth graves at shore sites. Ancient DNA investigations now show that the two populations may also have different origins. The hunter-gathers of the ”Pitted Ware Culture” might descend from a Mesolithic population, while the supposed farmers buried in the megaliths and affiliated with the ”Funnel Beaker Culture”, are more likely to descend from immigrants that arrived in the Ewarly Neolithic and brought agriculture to the islands.