Neolithic Communities in Europe Featured Surprising Gender Equality

As genetic research into the characteristics of ancient DNA has increased, scientists have uncovered a wealth of valuable information about how prehistoric people really lived.

In a study conducted by an interdisciplinary team of experts from the United Kingdom, Austria, and the United States, led by archaeologist Penny Bickle from the University of York, evidence emerged to show that Neolithic agricultural communities in Europe were highly mobile and deeply interconnected. Furthermore, the people who lived in them enjoyed a suprising amount of individual freedom and gender equality, with the latter being perhaps the most unexpected find to emerge from this new research.

The Egalitarian Linear Pottery Culture of Prehistoric Europe

When the earliest farmers migrated from the Near East to Europe, they brought innovative agricultural techniques with them, which would have a revolutionary impact on societal and cultural evolution in the area.

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But once these migrations began, the genetic researchers found, they sparked a pattern of mobility and migration that continued throughout the Neolithic period. Analyzing genetic data obtained from the skeletal remains of 250 individuals who lived during this time, the researchers discovered that many of them had lived far from their families, showing that societies were less restricted by geographic factors than previously believed.

As the study authors explain in a new article published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, the DNA they analyzed came from people connected to the Linear Pottery Culture, which thrived in Central and Eastern Europe between 5,500 and 4,500 BC. The characteristics of this Neolithic DNA revealed that Linear Pottery culture people migrated and settled across a region extending for hundreds of miles across the European landscape in just a few generations.

Notably, the burials of these 250 individuals featured no signs of differentiation based on gender. The tombs of men and women were supplied with similar types and quantities of grave goods, and there were apparently no differences in the diets they consumed. In short, the traits of these burials suggested that divisions based on class or gender were insignificant in early European farming communities—or at least in those associated with the Linear Pottery culture.

One tomb showed the importance of extended family ties in prehistoric settlements. In this burial one adult was buried with two children, with the woman’s arms placed protectively around the children. Genetic analysis proved the woman was actually the children’s aunt, highlight the depth of familial connections that bonded the people of the Linear Pottery Culture together.

Collection of Linear Pottery Culture ceramics from sixth millennium BC, from Museum of Western Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech Republic. (Zde/CC BY-SA 4.0).

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A combination of genetic and archaeological data made it clear that women were more active in agriculture in this culture than expected. Stone tools and ceramic pottery shards found at burial sites revealed how extensively women were working to grow and harvest food, and their DNA showed some had traveled far from their original homes while others had stayed close to their home territories.

“In recent years our perception of Neolithic communities has started to change due to greater analysis of grave sites, but our new genetic data is another piece of the puzzle that sheds more light on not just the work of these communities but their relationship to each other, as well as their similarities to the way modern humans build communities today,” Professor Bickle stated in a University of York press release, summing up the value of her team’s exhaustive genetic research.

An Ancient Massacre, a Mysterious Disappearance, and Much More

While the Linear Pottery Culture as a whole continued for about 1,000 years, in some areas it disappeared mysteriously around 5,000 BC.

Color-coded map showing cultures that occupied Europe during the Middle Neolithic period. (Joostik/CC BY-SA 3.0).

One theory is that civil war and violence broke out among different groups, and in fact excavations at the Asparn-Schletz archaeological site in Austria showed that a Neolithic period massacre had occurred there. Over 100 individuals were found buried together in a pit, with multiple fractures detected on the skeletons.

However, the latest analysis revealed that only 10 of these people were related to each other, showing that this mass grave couldn’t have been the result of an attack on a specific community. Curiously, the skeletons of young women were missing from this burial, while the bodies of children were shockingly found in abundance.

At this point, the experts don’t know what to make of this horrifying discovery.

“The massacre site raises many questions and more work will need to be done on this event to get closer to an answer, but it is interesting to contrast this idea of equal and free societies with this brutal act, knowing that most of the victims were not related to each other,” Professor Bickle observed. “Could they have been selected from a larger community and transported; were the young women present but not killed or held captive elsewhere, why children as well as adults—the mystery remains.”

It is clear that societal and cultural dynamics were complex in Neolithic times, just as they are today. Genetic studies can provide a new source of data that aids in the interpretation of past events, although a great number of uncertainties remain and some mysteries about ancient behavior may prove unsolvable.

Nevetheless, there are still things can be learned about even the most distant eras of human history, as this new genetic research proves. Professor Bickle is currently concentrating on the study of women’s lives in Neolithic societies, and hoping to uncover more information that clarifies their community status and their participation in the Neolithic agricultural revolution that changed the world forever.

Top image: Image of what a typical Neolithic European farming settlement might have looked like.

Source: Mikko Kriek/Municipality of Beek.

By Nathan Falde