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CR wrote:
The 'total replacements' people keep talking about in terms of spatial and chronologically limited time periods is not really supported by the genetic make-up of the CURRENT population.
This is ongoing, but I suspect 'total replacement' (at best) is relevant to mainly groups in prestigious/elite barrow monuments, which dominate the sources of mortuary evidence in the Neolithic/Bronze Age period.
It is worth bearing in mind that we have no solid answers in UK archaeology for 'Where All The Bodies Went ' - ie we suspect the vast majority of bodies (ie from the dominant 'non-elite' population) were dealt with in practices dissimilar to barrows, and which anyhow leave no archaeological trace (and thus no DNA sample point ).
It is really good to see this said - that the burial evidence of the non elite dominant population, many of whom may have been slaves is non existent. As it will be the for the modern millions, most of whom are/will be cremated. Cemeteries from say, the sixteenth century onwards, do give some historical account of ordinary people where we can see, for example, the number of child deaths, the average length of life, and individual families. Paupers were buried in unmarked graves - I live near a (no longer used) Victorian Cemetery which has many gravestones and even an obelisk to one Brunel's GWR managers but apparently 30,000 people have also been buried within its confines in unmarked graves. Doubt there is much left.
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