Neil Samantha, Evans Jane, Montgomery Janet, Scarre Chris
Department of Archaeology , Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory , Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG, UK.
R Soc Open Sci. 2016 Jan 20;3(1):150522. doi: 10.1098/rsos.150522. eCollection 2016 Jan.
Development of agriculture is often assumed to be accompanied by a decline in residential mobility, and sedentism is frequently proposed to provide the basis for economic intensification, population growth and increasing social complexity. In Britain, however, the nature of the agricultural transition (ca 4000 BC) and its effect on residence patterns has been intensely debated. Some authors attribute the transition to the arrival of populations who practised a system of sedentary intensive mixed farming similar to that of the very earliest agricultural regimes in central Europe, ca 5500 BC, with cultivation of crops in fixed plots and livestock keeping close to permanently occupied farmsteads. Others argue that local hunter-gatherers within Britain adopted selected elements of a farming economy and retained a mobile way of life. We use strontium and oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel from an Early Neolithic burial population in Gloucestershire, England, to evaluate the residence patterns of early farmers. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that early farming communities in Britain were residentially mobile and were not fully sedentary. Results highlight the diverse nature of settlement strategies associated with early farming in Europe and are of wider significance to understanding the effect of the transition to agriculture on residence patterns.
人们通常认为农业发展伴随着居住流动性的下降，并且经常有人提出定居生活为经济集约化、人口增长和社会复杂性增加提供了基础。然而，在英国，农业转型（约公元前4000年）的性质及其对居住模式的影响一直存在激烈争论。一些作者将这种转型归因于公元前5500年左右从中欧最早的农业制度中迁移而来的人口，他们实行一种定居的集约混合农业系统，在固定地块种植作物，并在永久居住的农庄附近饲养牲畜。另一些人则认为，英国当地的狩猎采集者采用了农业经济的某些元素，并保留了流动的生活方式。我们对英格兰格洛斯特郡一个新石器时代早期墓葬群体的牙釉质进行锶和氧同位素分析，以评估早期农民的居住模式。我们的结果与这样一种假设一致，即英国早期农业社区在居住上具有流动性，并非完全定居。研究结果突出了与欧洲早期农业相关的定居策略的多样性，对于理解向农业转型对居住模式的影响具有更广泛的意义。
