The difficullty to distinguish between sheep and goats is a well-known problem in archaeology and osteology. Distinguishing sheep and goats in archaeological animal remains takes time and time is often limited for osteologists. Because of this difficulty osteologists and archaeozoologists often use the term sheep/goat or ”ovicaprids” in their analytical reports. But even if the term sheep/goat comprise both species, this is often not the case when archaeologists and osteologists interpret and present archaeological findings. Sheep usually dominates in the interpretations and is often seen as a more important animal than goats which ultimately lead to false representations of the species and their relation to humans in the past. Zeder and Lapham (2010) have gathered criterias for post-cranial bone elements which show a high degree of reliability in osteological species determination between sheep and goats. However, when working on archaeological remains you do not know if the evaluation is done correctly.      In this thesis, the use of ocular osteological methods from by Zeder and Lapham (2010) are combined with genetical analyzis of selected sheep and goat bones from an archaeological assemblage in order to evaluate how well these osteological methods perform and assess which criterias on the bone elements can be seen as reliable when used to distinguish between the species. According to the results, only three criterias of a total of 21 criterias are seen as reliable. It is also apparent that previous osteological experience is relevant for successfully distinguish between sheep and goat with these methods. However, several criterias show tendencies towards reliability and are probably affected by the small sample set for each bone element, few osteological analysts, and the fact that all genetically analyzed bones resulted in sheep.

The Red Sea region is one of the important places that allow us to uncover traces of the evolution of anatomically modern humans. Besides the questions related to its expansion out of Africa, this region is also important in terms of the mutual influence between populations of Africa and Arabia that after a long period of isolation and genetic differentiation related to climate change in the Pleistocene and subsequent development of seaways and land routes in the Holocene began to contact with each other more frequently. Number of genetic analyzes has been done but some issues concerning on the later development still remain inadequately answered, mainly because of insufficient material. This work is focused on the analysis of 200 mtDNA sequences of four Sudanese populations - two populations of nomadic herdsmen Rashaida and Beja living in the close neighborhood around the city of Kassala and speaking different languages and two populations of the Nile Valley with settled way of life. Analysis of the intrapopulation level revealed much higher diversity of the sedentary populations (in this work the sedentary populations are represented by the Nubians and Arabs). Interpopulation variability and genetic distances within other 46 populations of the Red Sea showed that although Rashaida and Beja people...

Questions of the relationships between archaeology and language have long focused on problems of the Indo-European language family. This chapter considers general processes of archaeological and linguistic change with a special focus on language replacement. Here the model of agriculture/language dispersal is particularly significant. The potential contributions of archaeogenetics are also considered. / Por mucho tiempo, las preguntas acerca de las relaciones entre la arqueología y las lenguas se han centrado en los problemas de la familia indoeuropea. En el presente trabajo se tratan procesos generales de cambio de carácter arqueológico y lingüístico, con un énfasis especial en el reemplazo de lenguas. Particularmente significativo es el modelo de la difusión de la agricultura y las lenguas. Asimismo, se debate acerca de las potenciales contribuciones de la arqueogenética.

The purpose of this essay is to make a study of archaeogenetic studies, its role and relevance to humanities research in archaeology. An analysis will thus be made of how genetic research deals with archaeological issues and interpretations of societal changes (e.g. neolithization) and relates to concepts that are central to archaeology (e.g. the concept of culture). With only the remains of human activity to study, archaeological research has developed theoretical frameworks when trying to interpret and understand the remains from ancient societies. Thus, this thesis will investigate how or if the knowledge from humanities research is included in the archaeogenetic research. The question is not only how, but also whether archaeogenetic research contributes new knowledge that archaeology research has not already presented?

This study is an extension of the author's previous thesis (Theorell 2013) and focus on the analysed tibia, the humerus and the proximal and distal part of the radius of sheep bones from Gotland and goat bones from City of Falun. Methods for bone elements assessed in this study are compiled and evaluated by Zeder and Lapham (2010). The bones were then geneticallyspecies identified and the results were compared. Seven of thirteen criteria for both sheep and goat reached 100% of correct identification.Best performing criteria were on humerus and distal radius for both sheep and goats. The results for the complete bone assessments divided for the species showed best performance ongoats. Worst performing bone is the tibia. High performing criteria were found on all thetypes of bones used in this study which can be used to distinguish between sheep and goats. / Föreliggande studie är en utökning av författarens tidigare magisteruppsats (Theorell 2013) och fokuserar på att analysera skenben, överarmsben samt proximal och distal del av strålbenet från fårben från Gotland och getben från Falun. Metoder för benslagen som används i denna studie har samlats och utvärderats av Zeder och Lapham (2010). Efter osteologisk analys har benen genetiskt artidentifierats och resultaten från bägge analyser har jämförts. Sju av tretton kriterier för både får och getter visade 100% korrekt bedömning. Kriterier med bäst resultat fanns på överarmsben och distalt på strålben. Sett till bedömning av komplett benslag skilt mellan får och getter visade att metoderna presterade bäst på getter. Sämst resultat uppvisades på skenbenet. Generellt uppvisade samtliga benslag kriterier som är möjliga att använda för att särskilja mellan får och getter.

Agriculture, with different Neolithic cultures, starts in the Near East more than 10,000 years ago. This new way of life has very different archaeological manifestations that previous Mesolithic. After its Near Eastern emergence, the farming practices rapidly penetrated into southeastern Europe and the first signs of Neolithic in Central Europe are already 7,000 years old. It is being considered that the cultural innovations influenced demographic growth of the populations that have taken part in the Neolithic spread. In such situation, new mutations would have to fix and could form new specific haplogroups for Europe with ancestral ties to the Near East. Phylogeographic studies such as founder analysis of European and Near Eastern mtDNA sequences found that the European Neolithic component was enriched mainly by haplogroups J and T1, and that the genetic contribution of farming economy in European gene pool is about 10 - 20%. However, studies like these have not been yet realized in particular parts of Europe. The aim of this thesis is to disentangle the internal variability of Central European haplogroups J and T1 thought to be involved in the Neolithic demic diffusion. We classified these haplogroups from the HVS-I mtDNA sequences of 281 samples of the recent population of the Czech Republic. We...

In recent years, archaeogenetic studies have been widely discussed in popular media and they have raised many questions, especially regarding cultural identity and ethnicity. This thesis discusses reconstructions based on ancient human remains and how they are related to the current academic hegemony and political circumstances in Europe. People of Britain have reacted particularly strongly to the reconstruction of the Cheddar Man, exhibited in the Natural History Museum in London. Based on this and few other reconstructions of ancient individuals, the ethical issues behind human reconstructions are analyzed and how museums and popular media as the public spaces displaying these pieces of art should deal with such issues as cultural heritage, human origins, and identity. / Under de senaste åren har arkeogenetiska studier diskuterats allmänt i populära media och de har väckta väckts många frågor speciellt kring kulturell identitet och etnicitet. Denna studie diskuterar rekonstruktioner baserat på forntida mänskliga kvarlevor och hur de är relaterade till den nuvarande akademiska hegemonin och den politiska omständigheter i Europa. Människor i Storbritannien har reagerat särskilt starkt på rekonstruktionen av Cheddar-mannen, utställd i ”Natural History Museum” i London. Med utgångspunkt i denna och ytterligare några rekonstruktioner av forntida individer analyseras etiska frågor bakom mänskliga rekonstruktioner och hur museer och populära medier ska hanterar frågor om kulturarv, mänskligt ursprung och identitet.