▲ 作者：Lara M. Cassidy, Ros Ó Maoldúin, Thomas Kador, Ann Lynch, Carleton Jones, et al.
▲ 連結：
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2378-6
▲ 摘要
對於新石器時代的歐洲政治權力的性質和分配，人們仍然知之甚少。
儘管合作意識形態經常被強調為巨石建造的驅動因素，但建造最大紀念碑所需的人力支出讓一些研究人員強調等級制度——其中最極端的情況是一小部分精英組織了大眾的勞動。在此，我們提供的證據表明，這種類型的社會階層是在新石器時代在愛爾蘭建立的。
我們採集了44個完整的基因組，在這些基因組中，我們從紐格蘭奇長廊式墓室最精緻的墓室裡發現的遺骸中，確定了初級亂倫結合的成年兒子。
這種性質的社會認可的配偶非常罕見，而且幾乎只在政治和宗教精英中有記錄——特別是在一夫多妻制和以神王為首的父系皇室家族中。
我們在紐格蘭奇西部150公裡處的另外兩個主要的通道墓群中發現了這個人的親屬，除了飲食差異和精確的單倍型結構（這在史前人口的解析度上是前所未有的），墓穴樣本和更廣闊的數據同樣暗示了他們的等級關係。
這些精英的出現是在快速的海洋殖民的背景下，取代了一個獨特的中石器時代孤立的人口，儘管我們也發現了罕見的愛爾蘭狩獵採集人群在新石器時代人口中的滲透。
▲ Abstract
The nature and distribution of political power in Europe during the Neolithic era remains poorly understood. Although co-operative ideology has often been emphasised as a driver of megalith construction, the human expenditure required to erect the largest monuments has led some researchers to emphasize hierarchy—of which the most extreme case is a small elite marshalling the labour of the masses. Here we present evidence that a social stratum of this type was established during the Neolithic period in Ireland. We sampled 44 whole genomes, among which we identify the adult son of a first-degree incestuous union from remains that were discovered within the most elaborate recess of the Newgrange passage tomb. Socially sanctioned matings of this nature are very rare, and are documented almost exclusively among politico-religious elites—specifically within polygynous and patrilineal royal families that are headed by god-kings. We identify relatives of this individual within two other major complexes of passage tombs 150 km to the west of Newgrange, as well as dietary differences and fine-scale haplotypic structure (which is unprecedented in resolution for a prehistoric population) between passage tomb samples and the larger dataset, which together imply hierarchy. This elite emerged against a backdrop of rapid maritime colonization that displaced a unique Mesolithic isolate population, although we also detected rare Irish hunter-gatherer introgression within the Neolithic population.