Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes identify nuanced dietary changes from the Bronze and Iron Ages on the Great Hungarian Plain.

The Great Hungarian Plain (GHP) served as a geographic funnel for population mobility throughout prehistory. Genomic and isotopic research demonstrates non-linear genetic turnover and technological shifts between the Copper and Iron Ages of the GHP, which influenced the dietary strategies of numerous cultures that intermixed and overlapped through time. Given the complexities of these prehistoric cultural and demographic processes, this study aims to identify and elucidate diachronic and culture-specific dietary signatures. We report on stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from 74 individuals from nineteen sites in the GHP dating to a ~ 3000-year time span between the Early Bronze and Early Iron Ages. The samples broadly indicate a terrestrial C3 diet with nuanced differences amongst populations and through time, suggesting exogenous influences that manifested in subsistence strategies. Slightly elevated δ15N values for Bronze Age samples imply higher reliance on protein than in the Iron Age. Interestingly, the Füzesabony have carbon values typical of C4 vegetation indicating millet consumption, or that of a grain with comparable δ13C ratios, which corroborates evidence from outside the GHP for its early cultivation during the Middle Bronze Age. Finally, our results also suggest locally diverse subsistence economies for GHP Scythians.

An integrative skeletal and paleogenomic analysis of stature variation suggests relatively reduced health for early European farmers.

Human culture, biology, and health were shaped dramatically by the onset of agriculture ∼12,000 y B.P. This shift is hypothesized to have resulted in increased individual fitness and population growth as evidenced by archaeological and population genomic data alongside a decline in physiological health as inferred from skeletal remains. Here, we consider osteological and ancient DNA data from the same prehistoric individuals to study human stature variation as a proxy for health across a transition to agriculture. Specifically, we compared "predicted" genetic contributions to height from paleogenomic data and "achieved" adult osteological height estimated from long bone measurements for 167 individuals across Europe spanning the Upper Paleolithic to Iron Age (∼38,000 to 2,400 B.P.). We found that individuals from the Neolithic were shorter than expected (given their individual polygenic height scores) by an average of −3.82 cm relative to individuals from the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (P = 0.040) and −2.21 cm shorter relative to post-Neolithic individuals (P = 0.068), with osteological vs. expected stature steadily increasing across the Copper (+1.95 cm relative to the Neolithic), Bronze (+2.70 cm), and Iron (+3.27 cm) Ages. These results were attenuated when we additionally accounted for genome-wide genetic ancestry variation: for example, with Neolithic individuals −2.82 cm shorter than expected on average relative to pre-Neolithic individuals (P = 0.120). We also incorporated observations of paleopathological indicators of nonspecific stress that can persist from childhood to adulthood in skeletal remains into our model. Overall, our work highlights the potential of integrating disparate datasets to explore proxies of health in prehistory.

Integrating buccal and occlusal dental microwear with isotope analyses for a complete paleodietary reconstruction of Holocene populations from Hungary.

Dietary reconstruction is used to make inferences about the subsistence strategies of ancient human populations, but it may also serve as a proxy to characterise their diverse cultural and technological manifestations. Dental microwear and stable isotope analyses have been shown to be successful techniques for paleodietary reconstruction of ancient populations but, despite yielding complementary dietary information, these techniques have rarely been combined within the same study. Here we present for the first time a comprehensive approach to interpreting ancient lifeways through the results of buccal and occlusal microwear, and δ13C and δ15N isotope analyses applied to the same individuals of prehistoric populations of Hungary from the Middle Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age periods. This study aimed to (a) assess if the combination of techniques yields a more precise assessment of past dietary and subsistence practices, and (b) contribute to our understanding of the dietary patterns of the prehistoric Hungarian populations. Overall, no correlations between microwear and δ13C and δ15N isotope variables were observed, except for a relationship between nitrogen and the vertical and horizontal index. However, we found that diachronic differences are influenced by the variation within the period. Particularly, we found differences in microwear and isotope variables between Middle Neolithic sites, indicating that there were different dietary practices among those populations. Additionally, microwear results suggest no changes in the abrasiveness of the diet, neither food processing methods, despite higher C4 plant resource consumption shown by carbon isotopic signal. Thus, we demonstrate that the integration of dental microwear and carbon and nitrogen stable isotope methodologies can provide complementary information for making inferences about paleodietary habits.

Parallel palaeogenomic transects reveal complex genetic history of early European farmers.

Ancient DNA studies have established that Neolithic European populations were descended from Anatolian migrants who received a limited amount of admixture from resident hunter-gatherers. Many open questions remain, however, about the spatial and temporal dynamics of population interactions and admixture during the Neolithic period. Here we investigate the population dynamics of Neolithization across Europe using a high-resolution genome-wide ancient DNA dataset with a total of 180 samples, of which 130 are newly reported here, from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods of Hungary (6000-2900 bc, n = 100), Germany (5500-3000 bc, n = 42) and Spain (5500-2200 bc, n = 38). We find that genetic diversity was shaped predominantly by local processes, with varied sources and proportions of hunter-gatherer ancestry among the three regions and through time. Admixture between groups with different ancestry profiles was pervasive and resulted in observable population transformation across almost all cultural transitions. Our results shed new light on the ways in which gene flow reshaped European populations throughout the Neolithic period and demonstrate the potential of time-series-based sampling and modelling approaches to elucidate multiple dimensions of historical population interactions.

HVS-I polymorphism screening of ancient human mitochondrial DNA provides evidence for N9a discontinuity and East Asian haplogroups in the Neolithic Hungary.

Analysis of mitochondrial mutations in the HVS-I region is an effective method for ancient human populational studies. Discontinuous haplotype data between the first farmers and contemporary Europeans has been described before. Our contribution is based on a survey initiated on the Neolithic skeletons from Hungarian archaeological sites in the Alföld. This Lowland, the Hungarian Plain, is well excavated as an important region for spread of Neolithic culture from Near East and Balkans toward Central and Western Europe, started circa 8000 years ago. HVS-I sequences from nt15977 to nt16430 of 11 such specimens with sufficient mitochondrial DNA preservation among an extended Neolithic collection were analysed for polymorphisms, identifying 23 different ones. After assigning all single-nucleotide polymorphisms, a novel, N9a, N1a, C5, D1/G1a, M/R24 haplogroups were determined. On mitochondrial control mutations at nt16257 and nt16261, polymorphic PCRs were carried out to assess their distribution in remains. Neolithic data set was compared with contemporary Vác samples and references, resulting in higher frequency of N9a in Alföld as a remarkable genetic discontinuity. Our investigation is the first to study mutations form Neolithic of Hungary, resulting in an outcome of Far Eastern haplogroups in the Carpathian Basin. It is worth further investigation as a non-descendant theory, instead of a continuous population history, supporting genetic gaps between ancient and recent human populations.