Social Bioarchaelogy of Forager-Farmer Transition in the Balkans

Summary

In Europe, Greece and the Balkans were the first areas to be reached by expanding Neolithic, agricultural lifestyles. The Danube Gorges of the central Balkans represents one of the best case studies in Europe for studying bioarchaeological consequences of the change from foraging to farming thanks to abundant settlement and mortuary record found here. It also provides a good regional anchor point for the contextualization of other contemporaneous sites across the Balkans. A large number of skeletal remains, in the excess of 500 individuals from a dozen sites found along the River Danube in this region provide best insights into how the arrival of new populations along with the adoption of agricultural lifestyles affected human biology. A large suite of now available isotope data, including carbon and nitrogen, sulphur, and strontium, along with data on sex and age profiles, dental calculus, tooth wear and microstructure, paleopathology, and musculoskeletal stress markers allow for fine-tuned reconstructions of human physical plasticity in the Early Holocene. This paper reviews the current state of knowledge on the bioarchaeological consequences of the transition in the light of the Neolithic Demographic Transition model.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17557