Unetice Isotopes (Knipper et al, 2015) *Update*

Unetice had at one time been viewed as a chronological development of the Early Bronze Age, basically evolving out of some tentacle or bastard child of the Bell Beaker movement.  However, in a [recent post], Stockhammer et al showed that Unetice stuff is earlier, advanced and alien to its western reaches, which somewhat jives IMO with the 'so-far' DNA (100% I2 Y-dna of elite burials, as opposed to Bell Beaker 100% R1b of diagnostic burials)

I believe Eurogenes has the several genomes somewhere midway between Beakers and Corded folks, which also makes sense if a small number of elites had originally come from Slovenia or thereabouts.  I think sensing this for a while, the authors of this paper are trying to pick through certain grave diagnostic categories and identify immigrant groups.

Unetice Pit Grave [University of Wroclaw]

*Update*

Now having read it (thanks to Davidski, see link in comments section) I can condense this, although it is a fairly readable and short paper.

The majority of Unetice graves are single, crouched burials in a cemetery.  The deviant graves are sometimes two or several people piled in a grave.  Archaeologists have debated and seek to better understand why some people were grouped in settlement pits.  Are they foreigners, slaves, people who are in someway rejected.  Or possibly, did ordinary Uneticians sometimes prefer these types of burial arrangements?

Fig. 4. Images of the investigated human skeletal remains in situ. A): Karsdorf, Feature 3835; B): Esperstedt, Feature 6128;
C): Esperstedt, Feature 6130; D): Pl€otzkau, Feature 31; E): Pl€otzkau, Feature 30; F): Pl€otzkau, Feature 28; G): Leau, Feature 3001; H): R€ocken, Feature 370; I): R€ocken, Feature 163; J): Serbitz, Clipping of Feature 142 (Photographs: LDA Sachsen-Anhalt and LFA Sachsen). [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]

The results seem to indicate that the people buried in settlement pits had a similar diet as the majority, there also being no evidence of violence against them.  From the paper:

There is no indication that being of non-local origin was a major reason for being entombed deviating from the majority of the contemporaneous population.

There is no indication that the inhumations in settlement pits represent a distinct part of the Early Bronze Age society, which stood out by a higher or lower percentage
of nonlocal individuals or contrasting dietary habits including the consumption of larger or smaller shares of animal-derived food or aquatic resources in comparison to normative single burials

In fact, almost all individuals regardless of location or burial seem to be locally born and bred.  Since few of the individuals in this study had the diagnostics of elite Unetice burials, that might be expected. 

The Unetice story may develop into a scale comparable to the Norman caste of England.  By and large, the overwhelming majority of the population is essentially Saxon-Celtic, but a tiny group of sophisticates dominate trade and religion for several hundred years.

Knipper, C., Fragata, M., Nicklisch, N., Siebert, A., Szécsényi-Nagy, A., Hubensack, V., Metzner-Nebelsick, C., Meller, H. and Alt, K. W. (2015), A distinct section of the early bronze age society? Stable isotope investigations of burials in settlement pits and multiple inhumations of the Únětice culture in central germany. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22892 [Link]

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Inhumations in so-called settlement pits and multiple interments are subordinate burial practices of the Early Bronze Age Únětice culture in central Germany (2200–1700/1650 BC). The majority of the Únětice population was entombed as single inhumations in rectangular grave pits with a normative position of the body. The goal of the study was to test archaeological hypotheses that the deviant burials may represent socially distinct or nonlocal individuals.

Materials and Methods

The study comprised up to two teeth and one bone each of 74 human individuals from eight sites and faunal comparative samples. The inhumations included regular, deviant burials in so-called settlement or storage pits, and multiple burials. We investigated radiogenic strontium isotope compositions of tooth enamel (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) and light stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen of bone collagen (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) aiming at the disclosure of residential changes and dietary patterns.

Results

Site-specific strontium isotope data ranges mirror different geological properties including calcareous bedrock, loess, and glacial till. Independent from burial types, they disclose low portions of nonlocal individuals of up to some 20% at the individual sites. The light stable isotope ratios of burials in settlement pits and rectangular graves overlap widely and indicate highly similar dietary habits.

Discussion

The analytical results let to conclude that inhumations in settlement pits and multiple burials were two of the manifold burial practices of the Early Bronze Age. The selection criteria of the individuals for the different forms of inhumation remained undisclosed. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.