7,000-Year-Old Deer Antler Reveals Contact Between Hunter-Gatherers and Early Farmers

Artistic reconstruction of the shaman’s robes from Bad Dürrenberg, including feather ornaments. Credit: Germany State Office for Heritage Management

A 7,000-year-old worked fragment of a cervid antler recovered from a Neolithic colony successful cardinal Germany is offering uncommon penetration into aboriginal exchanges betwixt farming communities and surrounding hunter-gatherers.

Researchers accidental the object, shaped from the antler of a young roe deer, shows adjacent similarities to ritual pieces known from Mesolithic burials, including the well-known shaman sedate astatine Bad Dürrenberg.

The study, published successful Praehistorische Zeitschrift, links the find to nonstop enactment betwixt aboriginal farmers and hunter-gatherers, placing this grounds astatine a pivotal infinitesimal successful European prehistory.

The antler came from a humble pit excavated successful 1987 astatine the Eilsleben-Vosswelle tract successful Saxony-Anhalt. Analysis revealed chopped marks, a rectangularly shaped skull fragment, and notches adjacent the basal that were apt utilized for fastening, suggesting the entity erstwhile served arsenic a headdress oregon mask. Radiocarbon dating places it betwixt 5291 and 5034 BC.

Mesolithic links shown done cervid antler traditions and hunter-gatherers

Similar pieces bash not look successful Neolithic contexts, but Mesolithic sites person produced comparable antlers, often interpreted arsenic hunting cogwheel oregon shamanic regalia. Almost each of those were made from reddish deer, making the roe cervid find from Eilsleben unusual.

The 2 matching skull fragments with antlers of a roebuck. Credit: Germany State Office for Heritage Management

Its closest lucifer comes from the Bad Dürrenberg burial, wherever a pistillate and an babe were laid to remainder astir 9,000 years agone with an elaborate antler headdress and pendants of carnal teeth.

Researchers astatine the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt enactment that the Eilsleben find strengthens the lawsuit for adjacent interaction betwixt aboriginal farming groups and section foragers.

They constituent to the shared manufacturing traits seen successful chromatic and antler tools astatine the site, which lucifer Mesolithic techniques. They besides study that the beingness of a ritual-style antler portion reinforces the likelihood of taste exchange.

Fortified Neolithic colony offers discourse for taste exchange

The colony astatine Eilsleben lies astatine the bluish borderline of the loess portion and was archetypal identified done aboveground finds successful the 1920s. Excavations led by Dieter Kaufmann betwixt 1974 and 1989 uncovered a multi-phase colony of the Linear Pottery culture.

Evidence suggests the colony whitethorn person been fortified with a rampart, ditch, and fence, which is uncommon for aboriginal sites of this type. Its determination on a borderline portion whitethorn explicate the added defenses and the frequence of enactment with neighboring groups.

The findings besides framework however early farmers faced caller wellness risks arsenic they adopted agriculture. Researchers explicate that dental issues, vulnerability to animal-borne disease, dense carnal labor, and conflicts implicit onshore could person strained communal knowledge.

In these circumstances, farmers whitethorn person turned to experienced healers among foraging groups who were known for ritual roles and plant-based aesculapian knowledge.