Multi-isotope evidence for the emergence of cultural alterity in Late Neolithic Europe.

The coexistence of cultural identities and their interaction is a fundamental topic of social sciences that is not easily addressed in prehistory. Differences in mortuary treatment can help approach this issue. Here, we present a multi-isotope study to track both diet and mobility through the life histories of 32 broadly coeval Late Neolithic individuals interred in caves and in megalithic graves of a restricted region of northern Iberia. The results show significant differences in infant- and child-rearing practices, in subsistence strategies, and in landscape use between burial locations. From this, we posit that the presence of communities with distinct lifestyles and cultural backgrounds is a primary reason for Late Neolithic variability in burial location in Western Europe and provides evidence of an early "them and us" scenario. We argue that this differentiation could have played a role in the building of lasting structures of socioeconomic inequality and, occasionally, violent conflict.

Point taken: An unusual case of incisor agenesis and mandibular trauma in Early Bronze Age Siberia.

This paper focuses on the mandible of an adult male individual (radiocarbon dated to 4420-3995cal BP) from the Early Bronze Age Cis-Baikal cemetery of Ust'-Ida I (Siberia, Russian Federation). The mandible contains two features of interest: (1) bilaterally missing central incisors, and (2) the tip of a lithic projectile point embedded in the symphyseal region. Despite the absent teeth, the mandible presents a dental arcade without diastemata, appearing normal and complete on first glance. Three different levels of CT (computed tomography) imaging-ranging from clinical to synchrotron-based-were employed in order to establish the aetiology behind the missing dentition, whether subsequent to the projectile trauma or entirely unrelated to it. Results indicate that the mandible exhibits two highly unusual but unrelated features: probable bilateral agenesis of the central incisors and perimortem trauma to the mental symphysis. In addition, the embedded tip was successfully matched via digital imaging to photographs of a broken projectile point, an artefact recovered from the facial region of the skeleton.