World’s oldest family tree created with DNA from Cotswolds tomb
» ARCHAEOLOGISTS have drawn up what they believe is the world’s oldest family tree – made up of Stone Age Britons who lived in the Cotswolds more than 5,000 years ago.
An international team has worked on the analysis of DNA from a tomb in Hazleton, 10 miles east of Cheltenham – one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in Britain.
They found that most of the people buried there were from five continuous generations of a single extended family.
But they also believe that other individuals may be step-children, which suggests that blended families may be far from a recent phenomenon.
The research, published in the journal Nature, provides new insights into kinship and burial practices in Neolithic times, according to the authors.
They said the developments had been made possible due to excellent DNA preservation in the group, who lived around 3700-3600BC – about 100 years after farming had been introduced to Britain – before they were entombed in the Hazleton North long cairn.
The DNA extracted from the bones and teeth of 35 individuals showed that 27 of them were close biological relatives.
The team – which included archaeologists from Newcastle University and geneticists from the University of the Basque Country, University of Vienna and Harvard University – used this to map the relationships and produced what they say is the first study to reveal in detail how prehistoric families were structured.
They found that most of those buried in the tomb were descended from four women who had all had children with the same man.
Men were generally buried with their father and brothers, suggesting that descent was patrilineal, with later generations buried at the tomb connected to the first generation entirely through male relatives.
Although two of the daughters of the lineage who died in childhood were buried in the tomb, the absence of adult daughters suggests that their remains were placed either in the tombs of male partners, or elsewhere.
The discovery in the tomb of males whose mother was also in the structure but not their biological father indicates that stepsons were adopted into the lineage, the researchers said.
The team found no evidence that another eight individuals were biological relatives of those in the family tree, which might further suggest that biological relatedness was not the only criterion for inclusion.
Lead archaeologist of the study, Chris Fowler of Newcastle University, said: “This study gives us an unprecedented insight into kinship in a Neolithic community.”