EUROLIFE · Life histories of the Neolithic Transition: Estimating and modelling European life history events and human fertility rates
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2015-12-07 → 2017-12-06
- EU contribution
- €183,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Life histories of the Neolithic Transition: Estimating and modelling European life history events and human fertility rates
Some studies on living humans and great apes have indicated that life-history parameters (LHP) such as pregnancies, skeletal trauma, and renal disease can be identified from hypomineralized growth layers of tooth cementum. The explanation offered was that lack of available calcium at the mineralization front of the cementum during those “crisis” events causes formation of a hypomineralized growth layer. By observing different visual effects of those layers, hypomineralized ones can be detected, as they appear to be broader, wider and darker under optical magnification with transmuted light. However, use of tooth cementum growth layers as an individual age estimation method and as a life history identification aid remains sporadic, with results often carefully qualified or disputed. Project EUROLIFE’s primary aim was to develop and test a new method for establishing human LHPs from teeth microstructure.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The EUROLIFE project will develop and test an advanced microscopic method for establishing human fertility rates in Europe over the period of the postulated Neolithic Demographic Transition (NDT) c. 7000-4000 BC. Dental histological evidence taken from radiocarbon dated archaeological assemblages will be used to accurately estimate variation in female fertility rates across the NDT and clarify the precise origins, shape, and structure of the associated rapid European population growth. This work will simultaneously provide paleodemographic profiles for the archaeological samples studied, allowing reconstruction of ageing profiles and other life history events with a direct histological analytical method. For the first time an explanatory hypothesis for the NDT that predicts increased female fertility will be rigorously tested at both local and regional European scales with direct evidence from individuals’ life histories. This project will improve the Tooth Cementum Annulation (TCA) method to identify numbers of pregnancy/fertility events and to distinguish them from other life-history events. A clinical study on a large data set of human teeth (n. 200) with documented life-history information will enable rigorous archaeological protocols to be constructed. These protocols will be used to estimate fertility rates, life-history parameters, and aging profiles in a chronologically linked series of extant Mesolithic/Neolithic European skeletal collections in Europe. As multiple radiocarbon dates already exist for the proposed ancient samples and archaeological contexts, extant dates will be used to create preliminary Bayesian time-series models.In summary, the EUROLIFE project will develop and test a highly innovative analytical technique to establish fertility rates, life history events and ageing profiles within the context of their larger populations through time. It will also provide a robust clinically supported protocol for future demographic research.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON · LondonCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union