Stone-Age Site Earliest Evidence Of Family

4,600-Year-Old German Burial Site Gives Insight Into Primitive Social Relationships

(AP)  A stone-age burial in central Germany has yielded the earliest evidence of people living together as a family.

The 4,600-year-old grave contained the remains of a man, woman and two youngsters, and DNA analysis shows they were a mother, father and their children.

"Their unity in death suggests unity in life," researchers said in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While tools and remains from the stone age have long been studied, there are few clues to the social relationships between people.

"By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe - to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far," lead author Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide, Australia, said in a statement.

The researchers studied four multiple burials at Eulau, Saxony-Anhalt, all dated to the same time and containing adults and children carefully buried facing each other.

Several of the skeletons showed evidence of injuries, suggesting a violent attack. There was a stone projectile point in the vertebra of one woman and another had a skull fracture. Several had forearm and hand injuries, indicating attempts to protect themselves, the researchers said.

The scientists suggested that survivors of the raid later returned to bury the dead.

Besides the nuclear family in one grave, a second grave held three children, two of which were siblings, buried with a woman to whom they were not maternally related. The researchers think she may have been a paternal aunt or stepmother.

The team also looked at the strontium levels in the teeth of the skeletons. Strontium builds up in teeth during childhood and can be a clue where someone was raised.

Alistair Pike, head of archaeology at the University of Bristol, said the strontium levels showed that the females grew up in a different area from the males and children. That is an indication of marriage between different groups, with women going to join their husbands, which would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks with other communities.

[sunbum33919]

Also found at the site was the first stone welfare check. Apparently the "family" couldn''''''''t hunt or gather.
Posted by DeckardBR at 06:22 PM
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hahahahahaaha..... too funny. Apparently lost their 2nd amendment rights to own guns and no militia ..... but ya would think they could have sharpened up a couple of sticks for self defense.

[jsf14]

There''s lots of evidence of family life from lots longer ago than 4,600 years, but maybe not in that area.

[sunbum33919]

This sounds similar to the movie "Clan of the Cave Bear" where the blond woman was considered an outsider to the dark haired people who found her. She was never accepted as one of them but did have a child (forced) fathered by the leader of the clan. She ultimately went off to find her own people. Anyway..... it''s a very exciting find and maybe there''s something else there too. The first nuclear family - the first nuclear war??

[donevis-2009]

One should not pass up the theory that the mother being an outsider may have spurred the hatred that lead to the family''s demise. The female who%u2019s DNA did not match, may have come from a different tribe or had an appearance unlike their own. Maybe judged as a witch, but make no mistake something caused the hate that lead to such a horrific attack? "Not a sermon, just a thought"..

[earache4]

Also found at the site was the first stone welfare check. Apparently the "family" couldn''''t hunt or gather.
Posted by DeckardBR at 06:22 PM

huh?

[harbinger09]

legacy abq; no one said pre historic; stone age is a class of years of a known technology. Like a folder to put files in somebody named it the stone age.In this case European stone age stupid.

Posted by raskal_2 at 04:11 AM : Nov 19, 2008


Funny that the actual article does not state this--but it took another ''apologizer'' (You, in this case) to pull a justification for the article''s ommissions/discrepancies out of your azz.

The article starts with a de facto statement, which is debunked and ridiculed by several posters then later, in the same article, hedging occurs:

.."we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe - to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far," lead author Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide, Australia, said in a statement."

which means absolutely nothing--because it is not the first or only evidence nor the only evidence in Europe--it is just the first evidence where this sort of testing was used to est a link. A nonstarter--and if you were a scientist, you would recognize this padding of findings, by others just to make a name for themselves.

there are older, documented links in Africa, Mesopotamia, and Asia--all those scientists have to do is test some mummies and their lineage.

[raskal_2]

legacy abq; no one said pre historic; stone age is a class of years of a known technology. Like a folder to put files in somebody named it the stone age.In this case European stone age stupid.

[incog-nito]

This may very well be the first ever recorded case of police brutality.

[harbinger09]

just wanted to point out that this site is 4600 years old that means it dates back to 2600 years BC. About the time the construction began on the great pyramid. Obviously we have evidence from Egypt that predates this site. Another piece of work from CBS and the AP.


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Posted by cbscrash072 at 07:04 PM : Nov 18, 2008
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I would just like to point out that if you read the article, you would know how silly your response is. Unless of course you think that Egypt is in central Europe.

Posted by kansas1946 at 08:30 PM : Nov 18, 2008


The article''s point was not Europe or any country, it was the so called evidence that the first evidence of a family was found--if CBS''s math is correct, then that poster had a very valid point.

[truthislife1]

This was obviously post-flood. There, better spelling.
Posted by truthislife1

Why?

Posted by troutfisher4 at 12:14 AM : Nov 19, 2008

They are not fossils.