We are all accustomed to thinking that the Bronze Age was a time when men, going on trips, left women at home, as they were to play the role of guardians of the hearth. Moreover, it used to be thought that independent, powerful women traveling unaccompanied by men were a relatively new phenomenon in human history.
Exploration of new lands
However, recent research suggests that all of these perceptions are not true. The results of the study, published in the journal PNAS, indicate that it was women in Western Europe who traveled great distances at the turn of the Stone Age and early Bronze Age. While exploring previously unknown lands and trying to find new villages in which to live with their families, women exchanged objects and cultural ideas, thus playing a key role in the development of technologies in the early Bronze Age.
What DNA analysis of ancient skeletons showed
Researchers at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich used ancient DNA and isotopic analyzes of 84 skeletons found in present-day Lechtal in southern Augsburg, Germany. Their research showed that many women were not born in the region, but were probably from Bohemia or Central Germany, while the men seem to have remained in the settlement where they were born. In addition, the women came from many different places in the surrounding region, unlike the men who stayed in the same city all their lives.
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The analysis of strontium isotopes in molars allows scientists to draw conclusions about the origin of humans. He helped them make sure that most women were not born in the named region. Archaeologist Karina Knipper spoke about this.
“We saw a wide variety of different female births. This could only happen if many women for some time came to the Lech Valley from other lands,”added researcher Alyssa Mitnick.
Scientists were able to determine that these women were respected and were able to integrate into the local community. This is evident from the fact that they were buried in the same way as the indigenous population. All of these skeletons were buried for 800 years, between 2500 and 1650 BC. This suggests that such a cultural model was established.
Still many questions
This time, scholars only looked at one area of modern Germany, so it is difficult to say how widely these exchanges were practiced in Europe, or perhaps around the world. It is also impossible to say for sure whether women were active participants in this practice and traveled of their own accord, or whether they were forced to marry men from other settlements. However, these women did not seem to have traveled up to 500 kilometers in vain, exchanging ideas and experiences, as this large-scale cultural shift helped lead Europe out of the Stone Age.
Anna Pismenna
