An analysis of DNA extracted from skeletons revealed that the inhabitants of a Stone Age burial ground in France were mostly male and of the same lineage, according to a study published Aug. 28 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The excavation site, located in a limestone cave in Southern France, contained 75 mostly adult cadavers belonging to the 5,000-year-old community in Aven de la Boucle. Archaeologists analyzed the genomes of 37 of those individuals, and radiocarbon dated many of the bones found around the site.
Scientists determined that 76 percent of the bodies buried there between 3,600 and 2,800 B.C. were male. Experts say this could indicate that social status was passed down from father to son, making women far less likely to be buried at that site.
"Considering that all [the] men involved in kinship relations carry that same haplogroup (G2), this allowed us to raise the hypothesis of a patrilineal system," the study’s co-author, paleogeneticist Mélanie Pruvost, told LiveScience. "In other words, the affiliation to a specific male lineage appears to be a preponderant factor to access the collective grave."
However, there were still a few female cadavers exhumed in Aven de la Boucle, leading to a quandary for researchers. "Maybe only a limited number of female individuals were allowed or chose to be included in the collective burial," Pruvost offered. She explained that another possibility could be that "bones belonging to female individuals were preferentially removed from the cavity after decomposition occurred and moved elsewhere.”
Pruvost continued: "As it is often the case in prehistoric groups, women often left their ancestral community to live with their reproductive partner in what we call a patrilocal residence system. We can for example imagine that some female individuals would preferentially return to be buried within their ancestral community."
Archaeologists are still working to understand the specific meaning of the burial site and why it held such importance for the community. Found scattered throughout the burial ground were ceramic artifacts and animals bones were potentially "used to secure either shrouds or clothing.”
"We can imagine that this place represented something important for the community in relation to its location, its characteristics, or even maybe specific people who were buried there," Pruvost said. "There might be a thousand different reasons for this choice, and it is highly unlikely that archaeology will ever be able to set those reasons apart."
