Alex Bentley                       

The rise of complex societies from smaller groups is one of the major transitions in human prehistory. People may have differentiated themselves across multiple dimensions, including kinship. To study this, we measure isotopes in archaeological skeletons from Neolithic Europe and Southeast Asia.

Neolithic Europe

Our paper in PNAS (2012), "Community differentiation and kinship among Europe's first farmers" showed that early Neolithic men had significantly less variation in mobility-related isotope signatures than the women, and that men with distinctive Neolithic stone adzes had the least variable signatures of all. It suggests early hereditary inequality in prehistoric Europe.

• Bentley, R.A., M.J. O’Brien, K. Manning & S. Shennan (2015) On the relevance of the European Neolithic. Antiquity 89: 1203-1210.

• O’Brien, M.J. & R.A. Bentley (2015) The role of food storage in human niche construction: An example from Neolithic Europe. Environmental Archaeology 20: 364–378.

• Bickle P., R.A. Bentley, M. Dočkalová, L. Fibiger, R. Hedges J. Hamilton, D. Hofmann, I. Mateiciucová & A. Whittle (2014): Early Neolithic lifeways in Moravia and Western Slovakia. Anthropologie 52(1): 35-72.

• Bentley, R.A. (2013). Mobility and the diversity of Early Neolithic lives: isotopic evidence from skeletons. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32: 303-312.
• Bentley, R.A., P. Bickle, L. Fibiger, G.M. Nowell, C.W. Dale, R.E.M. Hedges, J. Hamilton, J. Wahl, M. Francken, G. Grupe, E. Lenneis, M. Teschler-Nicola, R.-M. Arbogast, D. Hofmann & A. Whittle (2012). Community differentiation and kinship among Europe's first farmers. PNAS 109: 9326-9330. [ScienceNow story].
• Holtby, I., C. Scarre, R.A. Bentley and P. Rowley-Conwy (2012). Disease, CCR5-∆32 and the European spread of agriculture? Antiquity 86: 207-210.
• Bickle, P. D. Hofmann, R.A. Bentley, R.E.M. Hedges, J. Hamilton, F. Laiginhas, G. Nowell, D.G. Pearson, G. Grupe and A.W.R. Whittle (2011). Roots of diversity in a Linearbandkeramik community: isotope evidence at Aiterhofen (Bavaria, Germany). Antiquity 330: 1243-1258.
• Bentley, R.A., J. Wahl, T.D Price & T.C. Atkinson 2008. Isotopic signatures and hereditary traits: snapshot of a Neolithic community in Germany. Antiquity 82: 290–304. BBC story
• Bentley, R.A. 2007. Mobility, specialisation and community diversity in the Linearbandkeramik. Proceedings of the British Academy 144: 117-140.
• Bentley, R.A., M. W. Lake & S. J. Shennan 2005. Specialisation and wealth inequality in a model of a clustered economic network. Journal of Archaeological Science 32: 1346-56.
• Bentley, R.A. & C. Knipper 2005. Geographical patterns in biologically available strontium, carbon and oxygen isotope signatures in prehistoric SW Germany. Archaeometry 47: 629-44.
• Bentley, R.A. & C. Knipper 2005. Transhumance at the early Neolithic settlement at Vaihingen, Germany. Antiquity 79(306).
• Bentley, R.A., T. D. Price & E. Stephan 2004. Determining the ‘local’ 87Sr/86Sr range for archaeological skeletons: a case study from Neolithic Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 31: 365-375.
• Bentley, R.A., L. Chikhi & T. D. Price 2003. The Neolithic transition in Europe: comparing broad scale genetic and local scale isotopic evidence. Antiquity 77: 63-66.
• Bentley, R.A., R. Krause, T. D. Price & B. Kaufmann 2003. Human mobility at the early Neolithic settlement of Vaihingen, Germany: evidence from strontium isotope analysis. Archaeometry 45: 481-496.
• Bentley, R.A., T. D. Price, J. Luning, D. Gronenborn, J Wahl & P. D. Fullagar 2002. Prehistoric migration in Europe: Strontium isotope analysis of Early Neolithic skeletons. Current Anthropology 43: 799-804.
• Price, T.D., R.A. Bentley, D. Gronenborn, J. Lüning & J. Wahl 2001. Prehistoric human migration in the Linearbandkeramik of Central Europe. Antiquity 75: 593-603.

Methodology reviews

• Degryse, P. and R.A. Bentley (2017). Archaeological geochemistry. In (W.M. White, ed.) Encyclopedia of Geochemistry, pp. 42-52. Heidelberg: Springer.
• Bentley, R.A. 2006. Strontium isotopes from the Earth to the archaeological skeleton: A review. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 13: 135-187.

Preshistoric Southeast Asia

In Mainland Southeast Asia, we have investigated isotopic evidence for prehistoric matrilocality and other kinship sytems, dating back at least as early as the second millennium B.C. 

• Bentley, R.A., B. Pradier, A.A. Kyaw, T.O. Pryce (2021) Kinship and migration in prehistoric Mainland Southeast Asia: An overview of isotopic evidence. Archaeological Research in Asia, in press.
• Huffer, D., R.A. Bentley, M.F. Oxenham (2021) Community and kinship during the transition to agriculture in Northern Vietnam. In (N. Kim & C. Higham, ed) Handbook of Southeast Asian Archaeology. Oxford University Press.
• Bentley, R.A., A. Willis, B. Pradier, A.A. Kyaw, T.T. Win, A.D. Brandon and T.O. Pryce (2018). Social differences in Neolithic/Bronze Age Myanmar: 87Sr/86Sr in skeletal remains from Oakaie 1 and Nyaung'gan.  Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 21:L 32-37.
• Ikehara-Quebral, R.M., M.T. Stark, W. Belcher, V. Vuthy, J. Krigbaum, R.A. Bentley, M. Pietrusewsky & M.T. Douglas (2017). Biocultural Practices during the Transition to History at Angkor Borei, Cambodia. Asian Perspectives, in press.
• King, C.L., N. Tayles, C. Higham, U. Strand-Viđarsdóttir, R.A. Bentley, C. G. Macpherson, & G.M. Nowell (2015) Using isotopic evidence to assess the impact of migration and the two-layer hypothesis in prehistoric northeast Thailand. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 158: 141–150.
• King, C.L. R.A. Bentley, C.F.W. Higham, N. Tayles, U. Strand Viðarsdóttir, R.L. Layton, G. G. Macpherson & G.M. Nowell (2014) Economic change after the agricultural revolution in Southeast Asia? Antiquity 88: 112--125.
• King, C.L., R.A. Bentley, N.G. Tayles, U. Strand-Viðarsdóttir; G.M Nowell & C.G. Macpherson (2013) Moving peoples, changing diets: isotopic differences highlight migration and subsistence changes in the Upper Mun River Valley, Thailand. Journal of Archaeological Science 40:1681-8.
• Cox, K.J., R.A. Bentley, N. Tayles, H.R. Buckley, C.G. Macpherson & M.J. Cooper 2011. Intrinsic or extrinsic population growth in Iron Age northeast Thailand? Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 665-671.
• Bentley, R.A., K. Cox, N. Tayles, C. Higham, C. Macpherson, G. Nowell, M. Cooper & T.E.F. Hayes (2009).  Community diversity at Ban Lum Khao, Thailand. Asian Perspectives 48: 79-97.
•  Bentley, R.A., R.L. Layton & J. Tehrani (2009). Kinship, marriage, and the genetics of past human dispersals. Human Biology 81:159-179.
• Bentley, R.A., H.R. Buckley, M. Spriggs, S. Bedford, C.J. Ottley, G.M. Nowell, C.G. Macpherson & D.G. Pearson 2007. Lapita migrants in the Pacific's oldest cemetery: Isotopic analysis at Teouma, Vanuatu. American Antiquity 72: 645-656.
• Bentley, R.A, N. Tayles, C. Higham, C. Macpherson & T.C. Atkinson 2007. Shifting gender relations at Khok Phanom Di, Thailand. Current Anthropology 48: 301-314.
• Bentley, R.A. 2007. Review of Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia, by M. Oxenham & N. Tayles. American Anthropologist 109: 775-776.
• Tafuri, M.A., R.A. Bentley, G. Manzi & S. di Lernia 2006. Mobility and kinship in the prehistoric Sahara. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 25: 390-402.
• Bentley, R.A., M. Pietrusewsky, M. T. Douglas & T. C. Atkinson 2005. Matrilocality during the prehistoric transition to agriculture in Thailand? Antiquity 79: 865-881.
• Bentley, R.A. (2000). Provenience analysis of pottery from Fijian hillforts: preliminary implications for exchange within the archipelago. Archaeology in Oceania 35: 82-91.