World's oldest nuclear family unearthed in Germany
DNA extracted from bones and teeth in a 4,600-year-old stone age burial has provided the earliest evidence for the nuclear family as a social structure. The find consists of two parents and two sons who were buried together after being killed in a violent conflict over some of the most fertile farming land in Europe.The archaeologists who examined the bones said the burial provides evidence of a shift in social organisation from communal living to societies with large social differences between people. "It provides evidence that will allow us to understand the rise of societies that are more modern," said Dr Alistair Pike, an archaeologist at Bristol University who was a member of the team.The site was discovered four years ago during quarrying at Eulau in Saxony-Anhalt, about 120 miles south-west of Berlin. Along with some individual burials there are four group burials in which more than one individual was...
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