The oldest family tree in the world has been reconstructed: it is that of a Neolithic family, who lived in Great Britain 5,700 years ago.
Thanks to the analysis of the DNA of its components, it was possible to trace the family ties, revealing cases of polygamy and the adoption of children.
A real prehistoric 'Beautiful', described in the journal Nature by archaeologists and geneticists from the universities of Newcastle, Harvard, Vienna and the Basque Country.
The researchers analyzed ancient DNA extracted from the bones and teeth of 35 individuals who lived around 3,700 BC (about a century after the introduction of agriculture in Britain) and buried in Hazleton North, one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in the country. Village. Combining molecular and archaeological analyzes, they established that 27 of these individuals belonged to the same family, made up of five generations descended from a single man who had had children from four different women. Male individuals were generally buried with fathers and brothers, a sign that the offspring was male. With the exception of two daughters who died at an early age and buried in the grave,the total absence of adult daughters suggests that the women were buried in the family burials of their respective partners.
Although the right to use the family tomb depended on the male lineage, the fact of being buried in one burial chamber or the other depended on being descendants of one or another woman of the first generation, whose memory remained alive. in the community.
The family ties between parents and children suggest that adoption was already in place.
The fact that eight people were not directly related to the others could mean that blood bond was not the only criterion for inclusion in the burial.
Three of these people, however, were women, and therefore it cannot be excluded that they were linked to a man in the family: they may not have had children or they may have given birth to daughters who, once they reached adulthood, would have left the community.
