An Interdisciplinary Project on the Neolithic Population of Modern Switzerland.

Abstract

Human skeletal remains from the Neolithic period are extremely rare and while many pile dwelling sites are known from Switzerland little is known about the inhabitants. Thus the recent discovery of a Neolithic dolmen in Switzerland with in situ inhumations was unexpected and might provide new information about the population. The dolmen of Oberbipp contained well-preserved skeletal remains and was documented using state-of-the-art technologies. The aim of the project is to analyze the skeletal remains of the Oberbipp dolmen in the context of further Neolithic material from Switzerland and to gain further insights into the Neolithic “Swiss” population. The preliminary minimum number of individuals (based on right femora) from Oberbipp is 40. Morphological analysis revealed the presence of both sexes and neonate to adult individuals. Based on the right femora a proportion of 37.5% subadults and 62.5% adults was calculated. First 14C results indicate a use of the dolmen approximately 3500 – 3000 BCE. The reconstruction of complete mitogenomes of 16 individuals shows the presence of haplogroups characteristic for Early Farmers and a remarkably high frequency of haplogroup K. Stable isotopes (C, N, S, H, O, Sr and Pb), further ancient DNA and 14C analyses are currently ongoing. The preliminary results are indicative of a “normal” Neolithic population and are in concordance to other Neolithic sites in central Europe so far. The evaluation of the stable isotope data as well as the evaluation of palaeopathologies might provide additional information. Project funded by Swiss National Science Foundation (CR31I3L_157024) and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (KR4015/4-1). Inga Siebke, Anja Furtwangler, Albert Hafner, Johannes Krause, Sandra Losch.