Final Report Summary - SIANHE (Stable isotope investigations on the adaptations of Neolithic husbandry to the diverse climatic and environmental settings of Eastern, Central and Western Europe.)
Sheep, goat, cattle and pig were domesticated 10 500 years ago in the eastern Taurus. They spread to most of the Near East and entered Europe at the turn of the 7th millennium BC, reached the North-western Europe coasts by the 5th millennium and colonized the British islands during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. The spread of domestic species outside the natural range of occurrence of their wild counterparts and their keeping in environmental and climatic settings different from their natural ecological niches imply some modifications in their dietary and reproduction behaviours. Neolithic pastoral communities developed husbandry strategies involving great zootechnical skills to insure the survival of their stock and to enhance the exploitation of subsistence products. Assessment of husbandry practices in ancient times has long involved analogy with (sub)contemporary traditional herding systems. Although these are very useful for encompassing the range of possibilities, analogy may today be replaced by direct evidence. In prehistoric times, with the exception of rare and sometimes ambiguous iconographical sources, the only direct evidence of husbandry practices are constituted by animal skeletal remains. In particular, valuable information may be retrieved from the isotopic composition of the elements that make up bones and teeth. These are incorporated into the skeleton from diet. They constitute valuable records of paleoecology and refer to individual life histories, they can be retrieve chronologically from teeth, and may be used to investigate husbandry practices when applied to domestic animals. In the framework of the SIANHE project, we investigated the adaptation of Neolithic husbandry to Europe in a zooarchaeological approach involving osteology and biogeochemistry. An important part of our research was necessarily devoted to methodological developments. Sequential sampling in teeth, giving access to the isotopic history at an infra-annual scale, is still partly exploratory. It requires a better understanding of how the isotopic signal is recorded in teeth and what procedures would be best adapted to decipher the original signal. For this purpose, reference datasets were constituted on the teeth of modern representatives of three key species of Neolithic European husbandry: cattle, sheep and pig, including specimens from primitive domestic breeds raised in extensive conditions, close to traditional herding, which may not be considered analogous to Neolithic husbandry systems, but the closest we could get nowadays under temperate latitudes. Most of their environmental and dietary history was known, for a confrontation of expected and measured stable isotope signal. These new data sets constitute a valuable comparison material for a better interpretation of the values measured in archaeological remains.
The targeted archaeological faunal collections belong to European regions with different environmental settings, where the advent of the Neolithic occurred at different times following the westward diffusion of Neolithic through Europe from the Near East to the Atlantic coasts. Most may be considered as highlighting practices within husbandry systems established for centuries to millennia. On well-documented faunal assemblages from Eastern (Romania, early Neolithic to Chalcolithic i.e. early 6th millennium cal BC to 2nd half of 5th mil cal BC), Central (Czech Republic, early Neolithic, 2nd half of the 6th mil cal BC), Western (France, Middle and Late Neolithic, 4th to 3rd mil cal BC) and North-Western Europe (Scotland, Middle Neolithic, 4th mil cal BC), our osteological analysis consisted in refining the mortality profiles of domestic animals (cattle, caprines, pigs) in order to specify demographic management and finality of husbandry. In some instances this work also allowed to draw conclusions on land occupation in time (seasonality of occupation) and space (scale of the pastoral system). On the same collections, stable isotope analysis allowed to address (1) the place of domestic animals in the surrounding landscape and trophic web, from which the scale of husbandry may also be approached; (2) the management of animal diet, including seasonal provisioning with fodder, interweaving with plant cultivation, feeding on marine resources; and (3) birth seasonality, a major physiological constraint strongly dependent on environmental parameters and imposing the annual rhythm of husbandry.
The most accomplished case studies are from Romania and date from the early 6th to the second half of the 5th millennium cal BC, encompassing the earliest occurrence of food producing communities in southern Romania with the Starčevo-Criş I culture at Măgura; the settling of Chalcolithic communities west of the Black Sea from the turn of the 5th mill. cal BC at the Hamangia settlement of Cheia; the advent of the tell sites of the Chalcolithic culture of Gumelniţa A2 in the 2nd half of the 5th mill. cal BC at Borduşani-Popină, Hârşova-tell and Vităneşti. The exploitation of cattle milk is strongly suggested from the earliest and within all observed assemblages. At Borduşani-Popină milk production was shared with calves. Caprines were mainly raised for meat and specialized exploitation of sheep tender meat was even highlighted in Gumelniţa assemblages. Domestic stocks were maintained in open areas, even though at Măgura, contribution of leafy fodder suggest introduction of resources from the forest in cattle winter diet in one case. Exploitation of the littoral lagoons from the Black Sea as salted pastures for cattle and sheep is strongly suggested at Cheia, while the Gumelnita communities settled by the Danube River kept stock rearing to a very local scale, taking advantage of the rich and diverse environment from the river and its alluvial plain. The growing importance given to the pig in the course of the Romanian Neolithic, from slight representation in early phases to a significant place in the Gumelniţa culture, seem to be accompanied by a change in pigs trophic level, from herbivorous diet in early phases to carnivorous diet in the Chalcolithic, most probably reflecting proximity of the flock to the settlement. At these sites, a strong structuration of pig mortality profiles shows that the slaughter focuses mainly on animals in their first year, including a significant proportion of suckling pigs. In all cases, no direct relationship could be securely advanced between management of animal diet and plant cultivation.
The targeted archaeological faunal collections belong to European regions with different environmental settings, where the advent of the Neolithic occurred at different times following the westward diffusion of Neolithic through Europe from the Near East to the Atlantic coasts. Most may be considered as highlighting practices within husbandry systems established for centuries to millennia. On well-documented faunal assemblages from Eastern (Romania, early Neolithic to Chalcolithic i.e. early 6th millennium cal BC to 2nd half of 5th mil cal BC), Central (Czech Republic, early Neolithic, 2nd half of the 6th mil cal BC), Western (France, Middle and Late Neolithic, 4th to 3rd mil cal BC) and North-Western Europe (Scotland, Middle Neolithic, 4th mil cal BC), our osteological analysis consisted in refining the mortality profiles of domestic animals (cattle, caprines, pigs) in order to specify demographic management and finality of husbandry. In some instances this work also allowed to draw conclusions on land occupation in time (seasonality of occupation) and space (scale of the pastoral system). On the same collections, stable isotope analysis allowed to address (1) the place of domestic animals in the surrounding landscape and trophic web, from which the scale of husbandry may also be approached; (2) the management of animal diet, including seasonal provisioning with fodder, interweaving with plant cultivation, feeding on marine resources; and (3) birth seasonality, a major physiological constraint strongly dependent on environmental parameters and imposing the annual rhythm of husbandry.
The most accomplished case studies are from Romania and date from the early 6th to the second half of the 5th millennium cal BC, encompassing the earliest occurrence of food producing communities in southern Romania with the Starčevo-Criş I culture at Măgura; the settling of Chalcolithic communities west of the Black Sea from the turn of the 5th mill. cal BC at the Hamangia settlement of Cheia; the advent of the tell sites of the Chalcolithic culture of Gumelniţa A2 in the 2nd half of the 5th mill. cal BC at Borduşani-Popină, Hârşova-tell and Vităneşti. The exploitation of cattle milk is strongly suggested from the earliest and within all observed assemblages. At Borduşani-Popină milk production was shared with calves. Caprines were mainly raised for meat and specialized exploitation of sheep tender meat was even highlighted in Gumelniţa assemblages. Domestic stocks were maintained in open areas, even though at Măgura, contribution of leafy fodder suggest introduction of resources from the forest in cattle winter diet in one case. Exploitation of the littoral lagoons from the Black Sea as salted pastures for cattle and sheep is strongly suggested at Cheia, while the Gumelnita communities settled by the Danube River kept stock rearing to a very local scale, taking advantage of the rich and diverse environment from the river and its alluvial plain. The growing importance given to the pig in the course of the Romanian Neolithic, from slight representation in early phases to a significant place in the Gumelniţa culture, seem to be accompanied by a change in pigs trophic level, from herbivorous diet in early phases to carnivorous diet in the Chalcolithic, most probably reflecting proximity of the flock to the settlement. At these sites, a strong structuration of pig mortality profiles shows that the slaughter focuses mainly on animals in their first year, including a significant proportion of suckling pigs. In all cases, no direct relationship could be securely advanced between management of animal diet and plant cultivation.