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Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 bc3. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia and Anatolia, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 bc, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 bc driving the spread of Indo-European languages. This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium bc Sintashta culture., The work by G. Boeskorov is done on state assignment of DPMGI SB RAS. This project was supported by the University Paul Sabatier IDEX Chaire d’Excellence (OURASI); Villum Funden miGENEPI research programme; the CNRS ‘Programme de Recherche Conjoint’ (PRC); the CNRS International Research Project (IRP AMADEUS); the France Génomique Appel à Grand Projet (ANR-10-INBS-09-08, BUCEPHALE project); IB10131 and IB18060, both funded by Junta de Extremadura (Spain) and European Regional Development Fund; Czech Academy of Sciences (RVO:67985912); the Zoological Institute ZIN RAS (АААА-А19-119032590102-7); and King Saud University Researchers Supporting Project (NSRSP–2020/2). The research was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (19-59-15001 and 20-04-00213), the Russian Science Foundation (16-18-10265, 20-78-10151, and 21-18-00457), the Government of the Russian Federation (FENU-2020-0021), the Estonian Research Council (PRG29), the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research (PRG1209), the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (Project NF 104792), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Momentum Mobility Research Project of the Institute of Archaeology, Research Centre for the Humanities); and the Polish National Science Centre (2013/11/B/HS3/03822). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie (grant agreement 797449). This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreements 681605, 716732 and 834616).

In many Central European river catchments changes in long-term sediment dynamics are caused by external driving forces (e.g. human impact, climate change). In addition, the sensitivity of fluvial systems to environmental change is controlled by the catchment’s geomorphic connectivity of individual sediment sinks. In this study, we reconstruct the temporal evolution of different types of sediment reservoirs along the sediment cascade in a mesoscale upland catchment to assess its sensitivity to external changes. The chronological evolution of hillslope and floodplain sediments is based on 79 OSL and 83 C14 ages. Our results show that deposition of hillslope sediments coincides with the first evidence for human-induced soil erosion triggered by the earliest European farmers, but were decoupled from the river network for more than two millennia when the aggradation of overbank fines started and steadily increased. Therefore, the connectivity between the colluvial and alluvial sediment sinks of the catchment is mainly controlled by the landscape geometry and frequency and magnitude of erosion, transport and deposition processes.

Europe has played a major role in dog evolution, harbouring the oldest uncontested Palaeolithic remains and having been the centre of modern dog breed creation. Here we sequence the genomes of an Early and End Neolithic dog from Germany, including a sample associated with an early European farming community. Both dogs demonstrate continuity with each other and predominantly share ancestry with modern European dogs, contradicting a previously suggested Late Neolithic population replacement. We find no genetic evidence to support the recent hypothesis proposing dual origins of dog domestication. By calibrating the mutation rate using our oldest dog, we narrow the timing of dog domestication to 20,000–40,000 years ago. Interestingly, we do not observe the extreme copy number expansion of the AMY2B gene characteristic of modern dogs that has previously been proposed as an adaptation to a starch-rich diet driven by the widespread adoption of agriculture in the Neolithic., The European continent is thought to have played a major role in the origins of modern dogs. Here, analysing two ancient dog genomes from Germany, the authors find significant genetic continuity throughout the Neolithic period and time dog domestication to ∼20,000–40,000 years ago.

The excavation of the Wattendorf-Motzenstein Corded Ware settlement in Franconia (Germany) has yielded new information with regard to the architecture, economy, and ritual activities, as well as the social organisation of Final Neolithic groups in Central Europe. The settlement is dated to 2660–2470 cal BC and was an agrarian community. Detailed analyses of the material culture combined with biological and pedological parameters allowed new interpretations regarding Corded Ware economies as well as domestic and ritual spheres. The settlement contained about 35 individuals at most, who were organised in fewer than eight households. The exceptional results obtained call for further research strategies to be developed.

Schachthöhlen im Bereich der Fränkischen Alb erfuhren während prähistorischer Zeit sehr oft eine Nutzung als Deponierungsorte menschlicher und tierischer Körper sowie anderer Sachfunde. Die Deutung der Einbringungsmotive ist kontrovers, wobei die schlechte Forschungslage bislang keine eindeutigen Belege zuließ. Mit Hilfe dreidimensionaler Dokumentationsverfahren sowie akribischer Fundbergung und -analyse bietet die erst jüngst entdeckte Kirschbaumhöhle in Oberfranken erstmals die Chance, die genauere Ablagerungsgeschichte der Fundhorizonte und die rituellen Handlungsabläufe in Verbindung mit naturwissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen zu rekonstruieren.Les grottes verticales ou gouffres du Jura franconien ont fréquemment été utilisées au cours de la préhistoire pout y déposer des corps humains et animaux ainsi que d’autres matériaux. Les raisons derrière ces dépôts sont mal comprises, et les données sûres manquent, étant donné l’état déplorable des recherches entreprises jusqu’à présent. Mais ceci est en train de changer, grâce à l’enregistrement en trois dimensions et à un relevé méticuleux des données et du mobilier. La grotte de Kirschbaumhöhle en Franconie supérieure, découverte seulement récemment, nous donne pour la première fois l’occasion de reconstruire, en intégrant les résultats obtenus par les sciences naturelles, la séquence détaillée des dépôts, des ensembles et des rituels accomplis dans ces gouffres.Shaft caves (or vertical caves) in the Franconian Alb were frequently used in prehistory for the disposal of human and animal bodies as well as other assemblages. Interpreting the reasons behind such depositions is controversial; unequivocal evidence is hard to come by given the poor state of research conducted to date. But this situation is changing thanks to three-dimensional recording and a meticulous approach to finds recovery. The Kirschbaumhöhle in Upper Franconia, discovered only recently, provides for the first time an opportunity to reconstruct the detailed sequence of deposition of the assemblages and the rituals conducted there by relating them to the results of analyses stemming from the natural sciences.

In 2000 the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology Bamberg excavated a Late Neolithic domestic site at Voitmannsdorf in the Frankian Alb. The features were dated into the first half of the second millennium BC. The detailed investigation of parts of the plateau showed evidence of Bernburg influence to Northern Bavaria in combination with a stone industry that usually is associated with Corded ware features., Journal of Neolithic Archaeology, 6 (2004)