Objective
The Neolithic Revolution marks a major turning point in human history, with the adoption of agriculture decisively changing the way people lived and their relationship with the natural environment. Archaeology has been fundamental in documenting and understanding this process. Much of the focus, however, has been on farming’s initial stages: the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and herding. Far less attention has been paid to the subsequent trajectory of farming societies. This question has recently come to the fore, instigated by claims for a ‘boom and bust’ cycle for early farmers in Neolithic Europe. This is particularly pronounced in Britain and Ireland, where farming was introduced comparatively late, ca. 4000 BC. Populations appear to have rapidly increased by many orders of magnitude, only to collapse after a few centuries. The currently favoured explanation is that this remarkable demographic shift coincided with the decline of arable farming in favour of herding. Yet the evidence for this is largely circumstantial, and its implications remain unexplored. A reliance on either cereals or livestock leads to differences in labour demands, sociopolitical structure and mobility, as well as environmental impacts. Distinguishing their contributions to human diets, therefore, is crucial to our understanding of human-environment interactions in the past: yet we still struggle to do so.
IGAPP addresses this gap by developing a novel, cutting-edge biomolecular toolkit to to elucidate the roles that livestock played in past economies, including distinguishing between the importance of manured cereals and dairy products/meat in people's diets – problematic with current isotopic approaches due to their equifinality – and the nature of ancient animal management practices through isotopic and genomic methods. The toolkit will enable a robust assessment of the proposed ‘boom and bust’ of Neolithic farming, with wider applications to other places and time
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities history and archaeology history prehistory
- medical and health sciences health sciences nutrition
- humanities history and archaeology archaeology
- agricultural sciences animal and dairy science domestic animals animal husbandry
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture grains and oilseeds cereals
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-ADG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.