Human mobility and the prehistoric spread of farming: isotope evidence from human skeletons

For over a century, archaeologists, linguists and, more recently, geneticists have debated whether the earliest farmers in Europe and elsewhere were migrants to new regions, whether indigenous hunter-gatherers adopted farming, or whether both processes combined as the two groups intermarried. Now an...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Alex Bentley
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: UCL Press 2004-08-01
Series:Archaeology International
Online Access:http://www.ai-journal.com/articles/94
Description
Summary:For over a century, archaeologists, linguists and, more recently, geneticists have debated whether the earliest farmers in Europe and elsewhere were migrants to new regions, whether indigenous hunter-gatherers adopted farming, or whether both processes combined as the two groups intermarried. Now analysis of isotopes in archaeologically recovered skeletons is providing new evidence about the mobility of some of the earliest farmers in central Europe and Southeast Asia.
ISSN:1463-1725
2048-4194