Community and Kinship during the Transition to Agriculture in Northern Vietnam

This study investigates how social organization and mobility changed during the Neolithic Demographic Transition (NDT) in northern Vietnam. Dental nonmetric traits were assessed for pre-Neolithic Con Co Ngua (early seventh millennium BP; n = 38) and Neolithic Man Bac (c. 3800–3600 BP; n = 65), along with cranial nonmetric data for the same Man Bac individuals. It identifies five putative kin lineages for Con Co Ngua and six for Man Bac, with little evidence for spatial organization by lineage in either cemetery. The mean 87Sr/86Sr for Con Co Ngua was 0.70947 ± 0.00017 (n = 40), and for Man Bac 0.70927 ± 0.00055 (n = 27). Man Bac had more variance in overall 87Sr/86Sr, but Man Bac females showed lower variance and a different mean than males within three of the putative lineages identified. While this may signal the presence of uxorilocal postmarital residence at Man Bac, overall, we find no evidence for a marked change in social organization.