Where Fun Comes to Die

The debate over the fundamental nature of the family rocks the scientific community:

Analysis of a remarkable cluster of graves at a Stone Age burial site near Eulau, Germany, provides the oldest molecular genetic evidence for a nuclear family.

The 13 graves, dating to 4,600 years ago, contained groups of adults and children buried facing each other – hands interlinked in many cases. The family members, ranging in age from very young children to adults 30 years and older, were interred simultaneously.

Perhaps preempting a March-of-the-Penguins-style attempt to co-opt science by conservatives, the religious right, and others interested in promoting traditional family values, the scientists warn:

By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe – to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far.  Their unity in death suggests a unity in life. However, this does not establish the elemental family to be a universal model or the most ancient institution of human communities.

By not providing a similar not-to-be-used-to-promote-your-beliefs disclaimer to the following information, scientists implicitly endorse diplomacy and scorn inbreeding:

The strontium analysis showed that the females spent their childhood in a different region from the males and children. This is an indication of exogamy (marrying out) and patrilocality (the females moving to the location of the males). Such traditions would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks with other communities.