by Karin Bojs
Moreover, the Danish archaeologist Lasse Sørensen has gone through data on early farming in Sweden and Denmark with a fine-tooth comb. He shows clearly that the older view – that hunters learned how to farm on their own – cannot be correct. It is based on misunderstandings and errors. Potsherds bearing impressions of grains have been ascribed to the wrong culture and period, while wild aurochs have been classed as domestic cattle.
In the spring of 2012, a study was published that can be seen as a turning point in an archaeological debate that has persisted for nearly a century – not just in Sweden, but worldwide. A team of Swedish archaeologists and geneticists published detailed DNA analyses of four skeletons, all of which are about 5,000 years old.
Their article appeared in Science, one of the world’s foremost scientific journals. Science’s editorial team considered the news so important that they held a press conference in Uppsala. Science staff actually came over from the United States.
During my career in science journalism up to that point, Science had only held one other press conference in Sweden. Naturally, I went to Uppsala to hear the researchers, Mattias Jakobsson, Anders Götherström, Jan Storå and Pontus Skoglund, give an account of their findings.
The big news was that they could demonstrate a clear difference between the genetic material of one of the skeletons – an individual from a farming community in Västergötland – and the other three, seal hunters from the island of Gotland. The farmer, who was known as Gök4 after the parish of Gökhem where he had been found, proved to be more closely related to Middle Eastern people than to contemporary hunters from Sweden. It was clear that his origins could largely be traced back to areas of Turkey, Syria and Jordan.
The results tallied exactly with what German researchers’ more limited analyses of mitochondrial DNA from ancient skeletons had also shown in the last few years. The Swedish researchers had used the very latest technology to analyse nuclear DNA, which accounts for a far greater proportion of an individual’s genetic material. The fact that they were able to demonstrate such a clear difference so far north in Sweden, on the northern periphery of Europe, was a clear indication that agriculture had come to the rest of Europe largely with people from the Middle East.
One of the grand old men of Swedish archaeology, Göran Burenhult, made an appearance at the Uppsala press conference, although he had not been personally involved in the study. He was the editor of the standard work Arkeologi i Norden referred to above. Now, after all these years, he was prepared to change his position, he announced to the assembled journalists. The DNA analyses had convinced him that agriculture had actually been introduced into Sweden by immigrants.
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Personally speaking, I was especially pleased that the oldest farmer in Sweden to undergo DNA analysis came from Gökhem in the province of Västergötland, a strikingly beautiful area near Falköping where the rolling landscape is still as green and thickly wooded as ever. As it happens, my paternal grandmother’s parents came from a village very close by.
I already knew that my maternal grandmother, Berta, was descended in the direct maternal line from Europe’s earliest hunters. Her – and my – mitochondria belong to group U5. So far, this book has dealt with our foremothers’ travels in Europe. Most of the individuals from Europe’s earliest hunting population that have been tested have mitochondria belonging to group U. The 9,500-year-old individuals from Søgne in Norway belonged to groups U5 and U4. The 9,200-year-old individual from the island of Stora Karlsö had U4 mitochondria. All the approximately 8,000-year-old individuals from Motala belonged to groups U5 or U2.
However, the average modern Swede bears hereditary traits inherited from both ancient hunters and ancient farmers – about half from each. Could my paternal grandmother, Hilda, be a descendant of Europe’s first farmers?
I decided to have her mitochondria tested. Hilda is no longer alive, and neither is my father. However, Hilda’s mitochondria live on in my four cousins, my two female cousins’ children, and my father’s brother, Anders.
My uncle agrees to have his DNA analysed. He sends off a sample, and a few weeks later the results arrive. As expected, Hilda’s mitochondria belong to group H, one of the haplogroups most typical of Europe’s first farming people. The farmer from Gökhem, Gök4, belonged to the same group.
To be more precise, my paternal grandmother’s mitochondria belong to a subgroup called H1g1. On a map, I can clearly see how contemporary members of the group form a broad band stretching diagonally across Europe from the Greek islands in the south-east to Britain in the north-west. ‘Very probably that reflects the spread of farming,’ comments the German DNA researcher Wolfgang Haak, currently working in Australia, when he helps me interpret the results.
It strikes me that the time has come to pay a visit to my grandmother Hilda’s ancient forebears. I plan a journey to the home of some of Europe’s very first farmers.
PART TWO
The Farmers
Katarina gave birth to Greta.
Greta had a daughter called Johanna.
Johanna was the mother of Anna-Greta, who gave birth to Elin.
Elin was Hilda’s mother.
Hilda gave birth to a daughter, Gunnel, and two sons, Göran and Anders.
Göran was Karin’s father.
Chapter Fifteen
Syria
My preference would be to travel to Syria, the location of some of the world’s most ancient known farming settlements. But there is a war raging there, and travelling to Syria to write is out of the question. Two Swedish journalist colleagues who entered the country were kidnapped and escaped by the skin of their teeth. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Most of the population are on the run. Those taking refuge in neighbouring countries are numbered in the millions. Many Syrians are coming to Sweden too. This is an exodus whose like has rarely been seen at any time in world history.
In the midst of such human catastrophe, it seems odd to be talking about archaeology. Yet the victims of war also include parts of humanity’s most important cultural heritage. News flashes reveal how valuable finds are being smashed to pieces or sold online for huge sums, with the revenue going straight into funding the armed conflict.
Just when I have given up all hope of finding any DNA results from Syria’s first farmers, a study actually appears, published in the summer of 2014 by a Spanish research team. The Spaniards have been carrying out excavations in the region for many years, together with their Syrian counterparts. The 2010 season was the last one; since then, the excavations have lain untouched owing to the war. However, some samples of bones and teeth turn out to have reached a laboratory in Barcelona, where researchers have been analysing them for several years.
The excavation sites are called Tell Halula and Tell Ramad. One is on the River Euphrates, near the border with Turkey, while the other is close to the capital, Damascus. Both represent the very earliest stages of agriculture, before people began to use ceramic vessels in this part of the world. The oldest samples come from individuals who lived over 10,000 years ago. Researchers have attempted to analyse the DNA of 63 skeletons, but only 15 of the analyses have borne fruit.
Of the 15 individuals concerned, two have mitochondria belonging to haplogroup H – the same main group common to my paternal grandmother, Hilda, and the farmers from Gökhem in Västergötland. The most common haplogroup among these early Syrian farmers is K. Some have N and HV or one of a few haplogroups that, though extensively represented today on the Arabian Peninsula and in Africa, do not seem to have been spread by the early farmers who migrated to Europe.
Haplogroup H may, of course, have been present in the hunting population of the European Ice Age, particularly in eastern Europe. There are a number of DNA analyses pointing in that direction. However, agriculture is the only way to account for the fact that H is now Europe’s most common mitochondrial group. Nearly half of Europe’s population have mitochondria belonging to haplogroup H. Most of
these people – like my maternal grandmother Hilda – can very probably trace their origins in the maternal line back to the world’s first farmers, who lived in parts of Syria.
Chapter Sixteen
The Boat to Cyprus
I travel to Cyprus. Unlike Syria, this involves a safe and comfortable journey. From the scientific angle, too, Cyprus provides an excellent alternative. The whole island is a kind of outsize laboratory for early agriculture. It enables you to observe developments step by step, as clearly as in a time-lapse film.
On the mainland, where agriculture first developed, it is hard for researchers to tell whether cereals, leguminous plants, goats and sheep are wild varieties or the result of deliberate breeding and selection. It takes centuries of cultivation and breeding to develop the characteristics typical of cultivated varieties.
There is no such problem on Cyprus, which lacks nearly all the wild varieties that complicate the picture. This is because the first Cypriots arrived on the island by boat, with everything they needed for farming on board.
The story is almost like the biblical tale of Noah’s ark. In the Book of Genesis, Noah takes refuge from the Flood, the result of rain that persists for 40 days and 40 nights, inundating the whole earth. God instructs him to build a huge boat, an ark, and to fill it with animals: seven males and seven females of the ‘clean’ sort, and a few of each of the ‘unclean’ sort.
There are many conceivable reasons for the first Cypriots’ decision to leave their native region on the banks of the Euphrates and set off on a long, hazardous sea voyage. Floods resulting from heavy rainfall, just as in the Book of Genesis, are one possibility. At that time, immediately after the Ice Age, the sea level was rising and precipitation was increasing in many places, including northern Syria. While the rain made it easier for the first farmers to grow their crops, there may have been too much water at times.
They may also have chosen to leave their homes because the region was beginning to become overpopulated and short of space. Agriculture almost certainly improved children’s survival rate. The population would consequently have grown fast, possibly sparking competition and new conflicts.
Alternatively, the first Cypriots may simply have been driven by curiosity and a spirit of adventure.
At any rate, we know they filled their boats with pigs, dogs, cats, goats, sheep and the occasional cow. They also took with them deer and foxes, which they released with a view to future hunting. It seems plausible to assume that they would have taken young animals, which it would have been easier to fit into the boats. They also took seeds with them to grow wheat and leguminous plants such as peas and chickpeas. However, there is no evidence they took vines with them, as Noah did in the Bible; wine seems to have arrived on Cyprus only a few millennia later.
They must have been well versed in building seaworthy vessels and in navigation. The voyage from northern Syria to the nearest promontory on Cyprus was over 80 kilometres (50 miles). There are researchers who believe they even mastered the art of sailing. However, the predominant theory is that they paddled open dugout canoes.
Interestingly, this voyage in the eastern Mediterranean took place at approximately the same time as when people in Scandinavia were developing their boatbuilding skills, which enabled them to settle all the way up the west coast of Sweden and Norway, as I described earlier. However, the first Cypriots’ achievement is even more impressive, as they sailed over the open sea. The voyage must have taken something like 20 hours.
Once they reached Cyprus, the settlers could supplement the seeds they had brought with them with barley and lentils, which grow all over the island. They could pick pistachio nuts, figs, olives and plums from trees growing wild. Their cargo included some tools and ritual objects made of stone, but they were quick to find the best flint on the island.
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I visit a number of archaeological sites on Cyprus, of which Khirokitia (also spelt Choirokoitia), designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1998, is the most fascinating.
Like most of the prehistoric settlements I visit, Khirokitia is in a beautiful location, on a south-facing slope and immediately above a river. I can glimpse the sea just a few kilometres away. Khirokitia was the site of a fairly large, densely built-up village, full of small, circular houses and surrounded by a high, thick stone wall. The round dwellings, intensely white in the sunlight, would have been visible from a long distance. Some were probably decorated on the outside with patterns executed in red pigment.
Archaeologists and local craftsmen have reconstructed a few houses and sections of walls. They have used the traditional techniques employed by Cypriots well into the twentieth century: outside walls and foundations of limestone and mortar, inside walls of sun-dried bricks mixed with chopped reeds, and flat roofs covered in turf. These building methods have remained essentially unchanged for 10,000 years, except that the houses became square after a few millennia. Locals speak with enthusiasm of how well the traditional houses are suited to the climate; turf roofs and sun-dried clay provide good protection against the heat of summer.
A neatly walled limestone staircase leads up to a gap in the wall. This is the way into the village, which would have enabled the villagers to check who was entering or leaving. However, it is unclear why they would have needed to do so, as there is no evidence of any violent events at that time. Cyprus must have been extremely thinly populated. An archaeologist points out that the wall encircles the western side of the settlement. It may equally well have been designed to shield the village against the strongest winds, rather than human enemies. Alternatively, it may have been intended to keep sheep, goats and pigs out of the houses.
My eyes half closed, I try to picture the scene when the village was full of people. There are fires burning in open courtyards between the houses. Women are seated in groups in these courtyards, working with large stone mortars. I notice one particular middle-aged woman who is pounding her mortar with circular movements. She is spare and slight, with delicate features, brown eyes and dark brown hair. In fact, she resembles my paternal grandmother, Hilda. A cat lies purring at her side.
There are big, rangy cats on the prowl everywhere. People seem to treat them with a respect bordering on reverence. Though there are dogs too, they are quite small. And children abound.
From the field beyond the wall, people can be heard calling out or talking to one another. Are my ears deceiving me, or is there something reminiscent of modern Basque in their language? The people in the field are bent double. Bearing large, crescent-shaped sickles, they are gathering in sheaves of grain. Up in the mountains I spot a flock of sheep, closely guarded by a few shepherds and their small dogs.
Although visitors are forbidden from entering the reconstructed houses in Khirokitia, you can peep in through the door openings. The windows are open apertures. There is beauty in the fall of the light in the round, limewashed rooms. One of the floors contains a grave. In the grave lies a skeleton in a crouched position, weighed down by a large, heavy stone on its ribcage. The living and the dead occupied the small round houses together. The purpose of the heavy stone on the skeleton’s chest, according to the archaeologists’ theories, was to prevent the dead from rising.
I ask the archaeologist Carole McCartney, who has lived and worked on Cyprus for many years, why these people chose to make their houses round. ‘Why not?’ she replies. ‘Why do we make ours square today?’
That is a reasonable question, of course. First of all, I reflect that circular houses built in stone and brick are simply a natural extension of circular tents. Nomadic people have always made such tents: a few poles in a ring, leaning in towards the apex, covered with animal skins, foliage, bark or whatever material is available. The forebears of the first farmers must have had round tents too, which is why they continued to build round houses of stone – simply in line with tradition.
But later I read an article by two researchers working in Jordan, Ian Kuijt and Bill Finlayson, and t
he penny drops. I am reminded that we still have round buildings, including in Sweden. They are widespread in rural areas. Farmers use round silos for grain storage. The round buildings of the early farming cultures may also have been a type of silo.
Many of the buildings in Khirokitia and other early farming settlements on Cyprus contain the remnants of two stone plinths. Archaeologists think these supported a wooden platform. Such platforms would have served to store grain, protecting it from damp, mould and mice.
Carole McCartney thinks the earliest stone buildings had an important function as storehouses. In her view, we cannot be at all sure that people lived there all year round. At the height of summer, some people may have gone down to the sea to fish, where they may have lived in simple fishing camps of which no trace has been preserved.
She also points out that people are unlikely to have continued living in a house where they had just buried a dead family member. They may have buried the body under the floor and then left the house for at least a year, until only the skeleton was left and the air was clear again.
Ian Kuijt and Bill Finlayson, the researchers working in Jordan, take the argument a step further. They think the circular buildings served primarily as granaries – and that they were a decisive factor when people switched from hunting to farming.
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Kuijt and Finlayson have examined several archaeological sites in Jordan, the most important of which, Dhra’, lies in the southern Jordan Valley, near the Dead Sea. It was in use at precisely the period when people in the Middle East were beginning to make the transition from hunting and gathering wild plants as their sole means of subsistence to farming the land.
