Family portraits in the Neolithic: from family trees to social behavior

Publication of the LGL-TPE in the journal Nature, on July 26, 2023. Communication of CNRS-INEE on August 1st, 2023. Paleogenomic analyses carried out on individuals from the Neolithic burial site of Gurgy "les Noisats" (Yonne), in the Paris Basin, have enabled the family trees of two families to be reconstructed on an unprecedented scale. A team involving members of the Laboratory of Geology of Lyon: Earth, Planets, Environment (LGL-TPE- CNRS/ENS de Lyon/Claude Bernard Lyon 1 Univ.) has published the results of these analyses in the journal Nature , which, combined with archaeological, anthropological and isotopic data, shed light on the social organization of this 6,700-year-old community. Social anthropology and ethnographic studies have described kinship systems and networks of contact and exchange in extant populations. However, for prehistoric societies, these systems can be studied only indirectly from biological and cultural remains. Stable isotope data, sex and age at death can provide insights into the demographic structure of a burial community and identify local versus non-local childhood signatures, archaeogenetic data can reconstruct the biological relationships between individuals, which enables the reconstruction of pedigrees, and combined evidence informs on kinship practices and residence patterns in prehistoric societies.