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from the round-round-get-around-I-get-around dept.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-09/mpif-mww090117.php
At the end of the Stone Age and in the early Bronze Age, families were established in a surprising manner in the Lechtal, south of Augsburg, Germany. The majority of women came from outside the area, probably from Bohemia or Central Germany, while men usually remained in the region of their birth. This so-called patrilocal pattern combined with individual female mobility was not a temporary phenomenon, but persisted over a period of 800 years during the transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age.
The findings, published today in PNAS, result from a research collaboration headed by Philipp Stockhammer of the Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology and Archaeology of the Roman Provinces of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. In addition to archaeological examinations, the team conducted stable isotope and ancient DNA analyses. Corina Knipper of the Curt-Engelhorn-Centre for Archaeometry, as well as Alissa Mittnik and Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena and the University of Tuebingen jointly directed these scientific investigations. "Individual mobility was a major feature characterizing the lives of people in Central Europe even in the 3rd and early 2nd millennium," states Philipp Stockhammer. The researchers suspect that it played a significant role in the exchange of cultural objects and ideas, which increased considerably in the Bronze Age, in turn promoting the development of new technologies.
For this study, the researchers examined the remains of 84 individuals using genetic and isotope analyses in conjunction with archeological evaluations. The individuals were buried between 2500 and 1650 BC in cemeteries that belonged to individual homesteads, and that contained between one and several dozen burials made over a period of several generations. "The settlements were located along a fertile loess ridge in the middle of the Lech valley. Larger villages did not exist in the Lechtal at this time," states Stockhammer.
[DOI not yet available]
Female exogamy and gene pool diversification at the transition from the Final Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in central Europe (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1706355114) (DX)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @11:09AM (11 children)
my own interpretation is that men travelled around for trading, and came back with wives (who were then stuck at home).
in my country, young people from villages routinely go to other villages to find spouses; if there's a rule about boys getting the house/land, then it makes sense that the girl moves for marriage.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by black6host on Tuesday September 05 2017, @11:43AM (10 children)
Or, men traveled around with women as their wares for trading, thereby moving them to new regions. Still happens to this day and I don't think it's a new phenomenon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @12:17PM (4 children)
That would be another mouth to feed while traveling, just in the hope of being able to barter that mouth away. There weren't resources enough to go dragging such overhead around on perilous travels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @12:44PM (3 children)
Try thinking "pimp" when you think of bartering women. The story doesn't exactly say that, but a prospective buyer might want to sample the wares before purchasing - for a small fee - maybe dinner and a place to sleep. Women still give it up today for about the same price.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @01:35PM (1 child)
Given that virginity of women to be married was always a big issue, I don't thing this is a likely scenario.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday September 05 2017, @02:08PM
You're thinking of very modern concepts. Medieval, etc.
We're talking about the end of the Neolithic period, over 2000 years before the birth of Christianity or the rise of the Roman empire, well over 1000 years before the birth of Judaism. The Celtic and Babylonian religions were just barely getting off the ground . Northern Europe was decidedly pagan at the time - and the Celtic religion especially tended to be a lot more liberal with both sex and the empowerment of women.
That doesn't rule out slavery or prostitution of course, but women may also have simply been the ones to wander - after all they took their value with them (production of children and soft goods) while men's value was more tied to the land (farming, which called for the construction and maintenance of labor-intensive infrastructure, and hunting which benefited from familiarity with the region). It's not unheard of, our closest primate relatives the Bonobos do much the same thing - forming matriarchal societies where males tend to stay in their mother's troop, while many young females leave to join a different one.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday September 05 2017, @08:51PM
Pimping or Pawning off the daughters. In exchange for animals or spears or other trade goods, or someone elses daughter, just at the time one's own daughter was starting to attract attention and becoming of the age ripe for producing another mouth for the local tribe to feed.
The charitable theory:
One could imagine that with the gene pool that small, tribes had already learned that breeding with their own children tended to make too many imbeciles to take care of, and the incest taboo was created.
The less charitable theory:
Women were apparently chattel in this part of the world for far longer than we imagined. Give them away to avoid a war or obtain trade goods. Or maybe acquire them as spoils of war.
Same difference genetically.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Tuesday September 05 2017, @12:56PM (4 children)
If such a thing was a common practice, you would see some evidence of it in the cultural "genetics" of the local populace. I find it rather unlikely that the practice of slavery once ingrained would just disappear leaving no trace.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday September 05 2017, @01:38PM (3 children)
...from TFS:
Looks like whatever this was didn't just disappear, it lasted 800 years or so, and clearly it also left a trace, as that's specifically what TFS is talking about.
Was it slavery / barter / sales? No way to really tell. But it certainly seems possible. Women tend to be weaker physically, and so domination can be done physically. It takes a very particular type of social milieu to enable women to the same degree as men, and there's no question that a gene pool is improved by a wider selection. Also, the unknown and exotic have a pull the girl next door can't always bring to the hearth for some.
So could bringing women along as "wares" of one sort of another be profitable? Certainly it could. Was it? Guesswork. :)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by unauthorized on Tuesday September 05 2017, @06:33PM (2 children)
You misunderstand my argument. I assert that if the people of this region had practiced this particular behavior for 800 years, then it would have remained in some observable form unless something forced it out of existence. A practice so widespread will leave more than genetic traces, it would also remain in the attitudes and cultural practices of the peoples. It seems extremely unlikely that it would completely disappear from so many relatively isolated tribal groups, leaving no observable behavioral evidence that later scholars could have documented.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday September 05 2017, @09:02PM (1 child)
It never disappeared, its been there all along.
Slavery / Serfdom / Kings and Subjects / Warlords and minions / Male dominated societies of all kinds have been around forever.
All around the world. And women as chattel still exist in many parts of the world.
I'd like to ask what evidence can you point to that there was ever a noble savage civilization of any size and duration where such did not exist?
Where did you get the idea that some form of gender slavery doesn't exist today? You need to see a little bit more of the world. This has been a plague of human kind forever.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Touché) by unauthorized on Wednesday September 06 2017, @12:49AM
WTF are you talking about? I am referring to the practice of selling females into sex slavery and/or wifehood. Economic slavery is about getting people (and it's usually males) to forcefully perform labor for you. The social mechanisms involved in the two practices are completely different.
That's like asserting NASA regularly launches ICBMs just because they are in the business of launching rockets.
"Male dominated" does not establish tolerance of female slavery. Nor would a society that is not male dominated be inevitably intolerant of it for that matter.
I did not make that claim.
I did not make that claim.