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Scientist Find Prehistoric “Nuclear Family”
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Joclyn Harrison
11/26/2008

On November 17, 2008, researchers found the remains of a family. The family was found in Germany in a 4,600 year old grave yard. They discovered little children from newborn babies to 10 years and adults were ranged around 30 years of age or older. DNA analysis helped figure out the age and gender of each skeleton. There where two adults and two little boys in the discovered grave site. One boy was between the age of 8-9 and the other was between the ages of 4-5. Researchers say they were part of a prehistoric tribe.

However, they found it kind of strange the way they were arranged. Some where interlinked by their arms or hands, and some were faced, face to face. The mother and father were both facing each other as well as the brothers. Wolfgang Haak said “their unity of death suggest a unity of life.” They also state that “we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in central Europe.”

In this very grave yard, graves held a total of 13 people. Each person was buried at the same time. (VERY STRANGE) The question is did they all die at the same time? If so, what happened? Where they buried alive? Was it a war? Did the other tribe burry them? How did this happen?

Well, in the article it did state that they have suffered bad injuries. They also suggested that they were “victims of a violent raid.” It could be highly possible because of the lesions found, apparently made by stones, arrows, or axes in the female’s back. She also had fractures on her skull.

Other test and techniques helped figure out the time of when the tribes lived. Therefore, using this information from dental remains, they inferred that it was in the Stone Age society. It also showed that the males and children where different from the females in where they came from. The females were from a different region. Did the women come from other tribes to help the unity between tribes?

That could be true, the article states “the evidence that men sought other partners from different regions to avoid inbreeding and that it was customary for women to move to location of the males.” One of my questions was answered in this article. Alistair Pike, archeologist at the University of Bristol said “Such traditions would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks (friendships or peace) with other communities (tribes).

I have learned that there were prehistoric tribes existed. In addition, I believe that somehow, the people who were buried in this grave yard were involved with hatred by another tribe. They ended up getting raided over land, power, or there was o peace between the two tribes. I think it’s very unfortunate that some of the kids were not able to live over the age of ten.