Abstract: The consequences of the Neolithic transition in Europe--one of the most important cultural changes in human prehistory--is a subject of great interest. However, its effect on prehistoric and modern-day people in Iberia, the westernmost frontier of the European continent, remains unresolved. We present, to our knowledge, the first genome-wide sequence data from eight human remains, dated to between 5,500 and 3,500 years before present, excavated in the El Portalon cave at Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain. We show that these individuals emerged from the same ancestral gene pool as early farmers in other parts of Europe, suggesting that migration was the dominant mode of transferring farming practices throughout western Eurasia. In contrast to central and northern early European farmers, the Chalcolithic El Portalon individuals additionally mixed with local southwestern hunter-gatherers. The proportion of hunter-gatherer-related admixture into early farmers also increased over the course of two millennia. The Chalcolithic El Portalon individuals showed greatest genetic affinity to modern-day Basques, who have long been considered linguistic and genetic isolates linked to the Mesolithic whereas all other European early farmers show greater genetic similarity to modern-day Sardinians. These genetic links suggest that Basques and their language may be linked with the spread of agriculture during the Neolithic. Furthermore, all modern-day Iberian groups except the Basques display distinct admixture with Caucasus/Central Asian and North African groups, possibly related to historical migration events. The El Portalon genomes uncover important pieces of the demographic history of Iberia and Europe and reveal how prehistoric groups relate to modern-day people.

Abstract: The present work attempts to provide an understanding of the issue of Mesolithic archaeobotany, especially in terms of plant use, woodland clearance, and a discussion concerning Mesolithic agriculture. Plant use patterns in hunter-gatherers are also presented and discussed. Special attention is paid to taxa occurring within archaeological context at Mesolithic sites in Europe, particularly in the Czech Republic, along with ethnobotanical evidence for their use.

Abstract: grounds, there seemed to be no differences between the lithic assemblages of the upper and lower breccias. Thus, for the time being we believe that both levels pertain to the same culture-stratigraphic unit, although clearly further excavations are required to test this proposition. Artifacts from Level S include Levallois flakes, 4 denticulates, a core, 16 plain flakes, and 23 other pieces of debris. Level 7 yielded a Levallois point, a simple convex sidescraper, 3 typical knives, 4 notches, 10 denticulates, 33plain flakes, 12 pieces of debris, one unifacially flaked pebble, one handaxe, a cleaver, and a spheroid. Taking into account the very limited sample of materials recovered from the excavated area, we nevertheless believe it possible tentatively toassign these assemblages to a late Acheulean and/or Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition. Any attempt to correlate these materials found in situ with those redeposited on the beach is highly problematical, s the latter may include remnants of much more recent occupations located elsewhere in the vicinity of the inlet.

Abstract: This article focuses on the production of bone tools during the seventh millennium cal bc. A large number of fishhooks and waste from fishhook production have been found at the sites of Saevarhelleren and Viste cave, in western Norway. The data have been studied by means of the chaine operatoire concept, meaning that the artefacts are described and analysed in order to identify the different steps in the production process and to characterize the technology in a comparative northern European perspective. The result shows that bone tools and fishhooks were crafted in a similar way at these two sites, with techniques that were mastered by all makers, and in close relation to stone tool production. When compared to other contemporaneous sites, the technology resembles the Mesolithic bone technology of north-eastern Europe. It thus contradicts the hypothesis of a strong connection between western Norway and the Maglemose cultural group in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany.

Abstract: Archaeological investigations in the Iron Gates reach of the Lower Danube Valley between 1964 and 1984 revealed an important concentration of Stone Age sites, which together provide the most detailed record of Mesolithic and Early Neolithic settlement from any area of southeastern Europe. Over 425 human burials were excavated from 15 sites. Of these, less than one-fifth have been directly dated. This article presents 37 new AMS dates on human bone from five sites in the Iron Gates, together with the corresponding δ 13 C and δ 15 N values. They include the first dates on human bone from two sites, Icoana and Velesnica. The results are important for the chronology of Stone Age mortuary practices in the Iron Gates and the timing of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the region.

Abstract: The materials for our study were represented by three skeletons from Murzak‐koba I and II and Fatma‐koba dated to the Upper Paleolithic‐Mesolithic period. The skeletal remains, both cranial and postcranial parts, were standardly measured and selected indexes describing shape and proportion of individual body parts were estimated. The intravital stature of all individuals was high, the cranial shape was heterogenous and their extremities proportion resembles the mid‐continental adaptive human type. Various pathological traces, such as periodontitis and periostitis were observed.

Abstract: Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from the bone collagen of human remains excavated in the Sado Valley in the Alentejo region of Portugal provide evidence for the existence of two Mesolithic communities living in close proximity along the shores of an estuarine environment with significantly different diets. These findings add to the limited isotope paleodiet data set from this period in southern Europe and offer a valuable contribution to understandings of the wider European Mesolithic along the Atlantic coastline by (1) providing evidence of coastal Mesolithic hunter-gatherers with mainly terrestrial diets in Europe and (2) suggesting the presence of regional heterogeneity, at a small geographical scale, in subsistence choices among coastal Mesolithic groups. These results show the complexity of human subsistence adaptations in the European Mesolithic and have wider-reaching implications for understanding hunter-gatherer group interactions.

Abstract: It has previously been demonstrated that the advance of the Neolithic Revolution from the Near East through Europe was decelerated in the northernmost confines of the continent, possibly as a result of space and resource competition with lingering Mesolithic populations. Finland was among the last domains to adopt a farming lifestyle, and is characterized by substructuring in the form of a distinct genetic border dividing the northeastern and southwestern regions of the country. To explore the origins of this divergence, the geographical patterns of mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal haplogroups of Neolithic and Mesolithic ancestry were assessed in Finnish populations. The distribution of these uniparental markers revealed a northeastern bias for hunter-gatherer haplogroups, while haplogroups associated with the farming lifestyle clustered in the southwest. In addition, a correlation could be observed between more ancient mitochondrial haplogroup age and eastern concentration. These results coupled with prior archeological evidence suggest the genetic northeast/southwest division observed in contemporary Finland represents an ancient vestigial border between Mesolithic and Neolithic populations undetectable in most other regions of Europe.

Abstract: 13 Declaration and Copyright 14

Abstract: In this article, we test a hypothesis about local dog domestication in the Danube Gorges of the central Balkans in the course of the Mesolithic period. Morphometric features of dog mandibles and teeth from Mesolithic–Early Neolithic sites of Vlasac, Padina, Lepenski Vir, and Hajducka Vodenica have been analysed and compared with recent wolves from the central Balkans. Decrease in size and changes in proportions of dog's dental features were tracked diachronically. We identified specimens which manifested mixed wolf/dog features. Such specimens originate from the Early Mesolithic contexts, the time when a decrease in size began. On the basis of this pattern, we suggest that dog domestication may have taken place in the Danube Gorges during the Early Mesolithic (ca 9500–7500 cal. bc). The reduction of size continued throughout Late Mesolithic (ca 7500–6300 cal. bc), but there were still individuals that might be regarded as ‘transitional’ in comparison with wolves on account of their size, and a distinct difference in size between wolves and dogs did not develop. Accordingly, if local domestication was in progress here, the domestication process might have lasted for more than just few generations and even several millennia. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract: For a long time, anthropological and genetic research on the Neolithic revolution in Europe was mainly concentrated on the mechanism of agricultural dispersal over different parts of the continent. Recently, attention has shifted towards population processes that occurred after the arrival of the first farmers, transforming the genetically very distinctive early Neolithic Linear Pottery Culture (LBK) and Mesolithic forager populations into present-day Central Europeans. The latest studies indicate that significant changes in this respect took place within the post-Linear Pottery cultures of the Early and Middle Neolithic which were a bridge between the allochthonous LBK and the first indigenous Neolithic culture of north-central Europe—the Funnel Beaker culture (TRB). The paper presents data on mtDNA haplotypes of a Middle Neolithic population dated to 4700/4600–4100/4000 BC belonging to the Brześc Kujawski Group of the Lengyel culture (BKG) from the Kuyavia region in north-central Poland. BKG communities constituted the border of the “Danubian World” in this part of Europe for approx. seven centuries, neighboring foragers of the North European Plain and the southern Baltic basin. MtDNA haplogroups were determined in 11 individuals, and four mtDNA macrohaplogroups were found (H, U5, T, and HV0). The overall haplogroup pattern did not deviate from other post-Linear Pottery populations from central Europe, although a complete lack of N1a and the presence of U5a are noteworthy. Of greatest importance is the observed link between the BKG and the TRB horizon, confirmed by an independent analysis of the craniometric variation of Mesolithic and Neolithic populations inhabiting central Europe. Estimated phylogenetic pattern suggests significant contribution of the post-Linear BKG communities to the origin of the subsequent Middle Neolithic cultures, such as the TRB.

Abstract: The role marine resources played in the subsistence strategies of groups, especially during the Palaeolithic, has been widely discussed in historiography. Much of this debate has been based on the information obtained from the consumption of marine resources as food and, to a lesser extent, their use as objects of adornment. This article presents a new approach to this debate, covering a long period from the Early Upper Palaeolithic to the late Neolithic, across a section of the Atlantic facade of Western Europe. The novelty of the present research is the application of a technological perspective to study these resources, which have been examined using a use-wear analysis methodology. This research documents the use of shell tools in archaeological sites of all time periods analyzed. These uses would be related to the processing of a variety of materials such as wood, non-woody plant, clay, ochre, and skin during the development of some of the production activities of these groups. This has enabled the addition of new information and an innovative approach to this topic.

Abstract: Multi-proxy palaeoecological data from two peat profiles at Esklets on the North York Moors upland provide a record of vegetation changes for much of the Holocene. Possible vegetation disturbance in the late Mesolithic and activity in the Neolithic and Bronze Age are recognised. In both profiles fine resolution analyses have been applied to the period leading up to the mid-Holocene Elm Decline which in this upland has been dated to ca. 4,800 bp (uncalibrated 14C years). Disturbance impacts at the Esklets Elm Decline are low scale, but phases of woodland disturbance, which include cereal (Hordeum)-type pollen, occur in both profiles ca. 5,200 bp, some centuries before the Elm Decline on the North York Moors, but similar to dates for this key palynological horizon in nearby lowland areas. A protocol is presented for the separation of Hordeum (cultivated species) and Glyceria (wild grass) pollen. The Esklets sites record disturbances during the late Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. These pre-Elm Decline disturbance phases represent either early penetration of neolithic cultivator-pastoralists into this upland or the activities of final mesolithic foragers. No neolithic archaeological sites occur nearby, but a ‘Terminal Mesolithic’ flint site dominated by microlith ‘rod’ forms occurs close to the palaeoecological sites. Such rod sites are dated in northern England to the centuries leading up to 5,000 bp and so are contemporary with the disturbance phases that included Hordeum-type pollen at Esklets. The cultural context of these disturbance phases and the role of ‘rod’ microlith sites during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition require further focused research to clarify all issues relating to this important period.

Abstract: The chrono-stratigraphic evidence for the Azilian of Vasco-Cantabrian Spain and France is reviewed and found to range from the Allerod to the Preboreal. A survey of the associated artifact and fauna assemblages indicates the transitional nature of the Azilian between the Magdalenian and the Mesolithic. The relationship between Azilian technology and supposedly abrupt adaptations to radically changed environmental conditions at the 10,000 B.P. boundary is not straightforward.

Abstract: Stable isotope ratios of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur in human bone collagen are used routinely to aid in the reconstruction of ancient diets. Isotopic analysis of human remains from sites in the Iron Gates section of the Lower Danube Valley has led to conflicting interpretations of Mesolithic diets in this key region of southeast Europe. One view (Bonsall et al. 1997, 2004) is that diets were based mainly on riverine resources throughout the Mesolithic. A competing hypothesis (Nehlich et al. 2010) argues that Mesolithic diets were more varied with at least one Early Mesolithic site showing an emphasis on terrestrial resources, and riverine resources only becoming dominant in the Later Mesolithic. The present article revisits this issue, discussing the stable isotope data in relation to archaeozoological and radiocarbon evidence.

Abstract: The most recent survey of radiocarbon dates for Dutch pre- and protohistory is Lanting & Mook (1977). This paper is the first of a series of updates, dealing with the Upper Palaeolithic in the Netherlands. In the next volumes of Palaeohistoria papers on Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze & lron Age, Roman Period & Early Middle Ages are planned. The present paper deals not only with the radiocarbon dates of Upper Palaeolithic archaeological materiaIs, but also with the calibration of the radiocarbon time-scale during the Late Glacial (ch. 1.7), with the evidence for wiggles, plateaux and steep slopes in the calibration curve during Bolling-Younger Dryas (ch. 1.8) and with reconstruction of the climate during the Late Glacial (ch. 2). In ch. 4.5.2.3 the traditional pollen dating to the Younger Dryas of the Ahrensburg Culture in northern Germany is rejected.

Abstract: The beginnings of the continuous human presence and of pastoral activities in the high mountainous region of Central Europe have recently become a frequently discussed topic in both archaeology and palaeoecology. In extreme environments such as the high Alpine main ridge and adjacent areas, highly adaptive subsistence strategies were required to exploit natural resources available in the subalpine and alpine zones. Such strategies were determined by changing environmental, social, and economic conditions. To investigate the relationships between settlement dynamics, human impact, and Holocene climatic changes, we studied the valleys of the Silvretta Massif in the central Eastern Alps between the Paznaun (Austria) and Lower Engadine valleys (Switzerland). We are presenting new archaeological, palaeoecological, and pedological evidence of continuous human activities from the Early Neolithic Period to the Bronze Age (~ 5,500–800 BC). This evidence sheds new light on the beginnings of intensified human impact on the high mountainous landscape, i.e. activities beyond Mesolithic hunting along the timberline. Archaeological data suggest a shift in subsistence strategies from hunting to herding at the end of the Neolithic Period (~ 2,800–2,500 BC). While palaeoecological data confirm this trend, they also indicate potentially earlier human and livestock impact through forest clearances by fire and grazing from about 4,200 BC onwards. In addition to archaeological sites and peat bogs, soils in high-altitude regions prove to be appropriate archives indicating former vegetation cover, shifts of timberline altitudes as well as disturbance of soil formation by human activity such as by slash-and-burn and by livestock grazing.

Abstract: This paper provides a critical review of Smith's (1989) typological discussion of the antler ‘mattocks’ of the British Mesolithic. The evidence for use of the term ‘mattock’ is assessed in relation to a new technological analysis of antler tools from Britain. In the light of the data presented here and developments in the study of Mesolithic osseous technologies from elsewhere in northwest Europe, a redefinition of the terminology and typology used to study these artefacts is presented. The potential for this redefinition to shape research across Mesolithic Europe is demonstrated through a discussion of the earliest occurrence of antler T-axes around the North Sea basin.

Abstract: Franchthi Cave is a cornerstone for research on the mechanisms of the forager-producer transition in the southern Balkans region. Publications on this site have documented the geological, artifactual, and macrobotanical records, but detailed information on the faunas is lacking. This zooarchaeological study focuses on the Final Mesolithic and Initial Neolithic periods and the question of whether livestock were adopted as isolated components by late Mesolithic foragers or the site was colonized by people who possessed a fully agricultural lifestyle. Because minor stratigraphic mixing may underlie earlier perceptions of a gradual inclusion of domestic animals into the diet during the Initial Neolithic occupation, we examine this question with the help of zooarchaeological and taphonomic data. Changes in taxonomic abundance, contrasting patterns of burning damage, and caprine (sheep and goat) demographic and body-size data together reveal an abrupt shift from a broad spectrum diet during the Final Mesolithic...

Abstract: This paper presents results from lithic, pottery, zooarchaeological, osteological, petrological and geoarchaeological analyses from the early Neolithic, Mesolithic and late Upper Paleolithic levels of Zemunica Cave in Croatia. The site provides valuable information about the aforementioned periods in Dalmatia and original evidence supporting newly proposed models of the spread of Neolithisation in this area.

Abstract: Once Britain had become separated from the European mainland in the seventh millennium BC, Mesolithic stone tool traditions on opposite sides of the newly formed Channel embarked upon different directions of development. Patterns of cross-Channel contact have been difficult to decipher in this material, prior to the expansion of farming (and possibly farmers) from northern France at the beginning of the fourth millennium BC. Hence the discovery of Late Mesolithic microliths of apparently Belgian affinity at the western extremity of southern Britain—in the Isles of Scilly—comes as something of a surprise. The find is described here in detail, along with alternative scenarios that might explain it. The article is followed by a series of comments, with a closing reply from the authors.