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Tracing human mobility in central Europe during the Upper Paleolithic using sub-seasonally resolved Sr isotope records in ornaments

Mobility of people and goods during the Upper Paleolithic has proven difficult to reconstruct given the relative rareness of remains. Nevertheless, archaeological contexts like the Late Pleistocene horizon of Borsuka Cave (Southern Poland) represent a unique opportunity to explore patterns of object...

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Autores principales: Kowalik, Nina, Anczkiewicz, Robert, Wilczyński, Jarosław, Wojtal, Piotr, Müller, Wolfgang, Bondioli, Luca, Nava, Alessia, Gasparik, Mihály
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7316840/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32587350
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67017-2
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author Kowalik, Nina
Anczkiewicz, Robert
Wilczyński, Jarosław
Wojtal, Piotr
Müller, Wolfgang
Bondioli, Luca
Nava, Alessia
Gasparik, Mihály
author_facet Kowalik, Nina
Anczkiewicz, Robert
Wilczyński, Jarosław
Wojtal, Piotr
Müller, Wolfgang
Bondioli, Luca
Nava, Alessia
Gasparik, Mihály
author_sort Kowalik, Nina
collection PubMed
description Mobility of people and goods during the Upper Paleolithic has proven difficult to reconstruct given the relative rareness of remains. Nevertheless, archaeological contexts like the Late Pleistocene horizon of Borsuka Cave (Southern Poland) represent a unique opportunity to explore patterns of objects’ transportation across Central Europe. We investigated the origin of four ornaments made of European elk (Alces alces L.) incisors recovered at Borsuka Cave – the oldest known burial site in Poland, possibly a child grave. Laser-ablation plasma source mass spectrometric analyses of trace elements and Sr isotopic compositions revealed that one elk was roaming within a geologically uniform area while the others changed their pastures during their lifetimes. The non-local origin of the elk teeth is inferred from their exotic Sr isotopic compositions and the lack of evidence for the presence of elk in this territory during the Pleistocene. Instead, the elks’ Sr isotopic composition show good agreement with sites near the Austria-Slovakia border region and northern Hungary, ~250 km away from the study site. We argue that the artefacts were most likely brought to Borsuka Cave by humans or by a network of exchange, so far never reported in the time range 32.5–28.8 ka cal BP for Southern Poland.
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spelling pubmed-73168402020-06-26 Tracing human mobility in central Europe during the Upper Paleolithic using sub-seasonally resolved Sr isotope records in ornaments Kowalik, Nina Anczkiewicz, Robert Wilczyński, Jarosław Wojtal, Piotr Müller, Wolfgang Bondioli, Luca Nava, Alessia Gasparik, Mihály Sci Rep Article Mobility of people and goods during the Upper Paleolithic has proven difficult to reconstruct given the relative rareness of remains. Nevertheless, archaeological contexts like the Late Pleistocene horizon of Borsuka Cave (Southern Poland) represent a unique opportunity to explore patterns of objects’ transportation across Central Europe. We investigated the origin of four ornaments made of European elk (Alces alces L.) incisors recovered at Borsuka Cave – the oldest known burial site in Poland, possibly a child grave. Laser-ablation plasma source mass spectrometric analyses of trace elements and Sr isotopic compositions revealed that one elk was roaming within a geologically uniform area while the others changed their pastures during their lifetimes. The non-local origin of the elk teeth is inferred from their exotic Sr isotopic compositions and the lack of evidence for the presence of elk in this territory during the Pleistocene. Instead, the elks’ Sr isotopic composition show good agreement with sites near the Austria-Slovakia border region and northern Hungary, ~250 km away from the study site. We argue that the artefacts were most likely brought to Borsuka Cave by humans or by a network of exchange, so far never reported in the time range 32.5–28.8 ka cal BP for Southern Poland. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-06-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7316840/ /pubmed/32587350 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67017-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Kowalik, Nina
Anczkiewicz, Robert
Wilczyński, Jarosław
Wojtal, Piotr
Müller, Wolfgang
Bondioli, Luca
Nava, Alessia
Gasparik, Mihály
Tracing human mobility in central Europe during the Upper Paleolithic using sub-seasonally resolved Sr isotope records in ornaments
title Tracing human mobility in central Europe during the Upper Paleolithic using sub-seasonally resolved Sr isotope records in ornaments
title_full Tracing human mobility in central Europe during the Upper Paleolithic using sub-seasonally resolved Sr isotope records in ornaments
title_fullStr Tracing human mobility in central Europe during the Upper Paleolithic using sub-seasonally resolved Sr isotope records in ornaments
title_full_unstemmed Tracing human mobility in central Europe during the Upper Paleolithic using sub-seasonally resolved Sr isotope records in ornaments
title_short Tracing human mobility in central Europe during the Upper Paleolithic using sub-seasonally resolved Sr isotope records in ornaments
title_sort tracing human mobility in central europe during the upper paleolithic using sub-seasonally resolved sr isotope records in ornaments
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7316840/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32587350
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67017-2
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