a not so modern family

Determining when the nuclear family first began to have a significant role in human social development has been difficult for scientist to prove. However, an international team of scientists lead by Wolfgang Haak, at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, discovered what is believed to be the earliest evidence of the nuclear family.1 In 2005 Wolfgang and his team unearthed several burial sites in Eulau, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany which contained the remains of thirteen individuals.1 The Eulau site is located in the wooded low-mountain region of southern Germany.
Using radiocarbon dating the team determined the graves to be 4,600 years old making them part of the Corded Ware culture which existed during the late Neolithic Era.2 The Corded Ware covered most of northern Europe and got their name from the decoration associated with their pottery. They have also been referred to as the Battle Axe culture, associated with the artifacts left with deceased males, or the Single Grave culture with relation to their style of burial.
The Corded Ware culture used single graves for the burial of their dead. They would lay the individual in the grave on their side in the flexed position.3 If it was a male they would be placed on their right side and females on their left side both facing south.3 The significance of the Eulau find is the manner in which they were buried, collectively in a small group of graves.
One particular grave, 6-0099, contained the skeletons of four individuals a male, female and two children.2 Using DNA testing they were able to determine the grave was of a father, mother and two young boys. The father is believed to be forty- to sixty-years-old, the mother thirty-five- to fifty-years-old, one boy four- to five-years-old...

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...nsight to the Neolithic Period. It has provided "the most direct evidence for interpersonal violence in the archaeological record" and "we now have for the first time definite evidence for the presence of nuclear families in the Corded Ware".2

Works Cited

1 University of Bristol. "World's Earliest Nuclear Family Found." ScienceDaily. Accessed April 15, 2014. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117192915.htm
2 Meyer,Christian, et al. “The Eulau eulogy: Bioarchaeological interpretation of lethal violence in
Corded Ware multiple burials from Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.” Journal Of
Anthropological Archaeology 28, no. 4 (December 2009): 412-423. Accessed
April 15, 2014. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416509000348.

3 Schulting Rick and Fibiger, Linda. Stick, Stones, & Broken Bones (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 92,153-154.