Early Neolithic diet and animal husbandry: stable isotope evidence from three Linearbandkeramik (LBK) sites in Central Germany

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Abstract

The first appearance of the Neolithic Linearbandkeramik (LBK) in Central Germany occurred during the 6th millennium BC. However, though LBK sites are abundant in the German loess areas, there are only a few studies that reconstruct the diet of these first farmers using biochemical methods. Here we present the largest study undertaken to date on LBK material using stable isotope analysis of carbon and nitrogen to reconstruct human diet and animal husbandry strategies. We analyzed the bone collagen of 97 human individuals and 45 associated animals from the sites of Derenburg, Halberstadt and Karsdorf in the Middle Elbe–Saale region of Central Germany. Mean adult human values are −19.9 ± 0.4‰ for δ13C and 8.7 ± 0.8‰ for δ15N. The δ13C values are typical for terrestrial, temperate European regions, whereas the δ15N values fall within an expected range for farming societies with a mixed diet consisting of products from domestic animals and plants. The consumption of unfermented dairy products is unlikely as there is direct palaeogenetic evidence of lactose intolerance available for one of the sites. There are no clear indications for dietary differences in sex. Young children under three years of age are enriched in δ15N due to breastfeeding indicating that weaning likely occurred around the age of three years. The fauna exhibit mean δ13C values of −20.9 ± 0.8‰ and mean δ15N values of 7.0 ± 0.9‰ respectively. Variation in the δ13C and δ15N in the domestic animals is probably caused by different livestock managements.

Introduction

The Neolithic transition can be viewed as one of the most dramatic and significant changes in modern human economic, social and cultural life. Originating in the Near East approximately 10,000 years ago food production by farming spread quickly throughout the rest of Eurasia. This transition from hunter–gatherer subsistence to sedentary agriculture involved not only the domestication of animals and plants but also the invention of processing and storing objects in the form of grinding stones and pottery and the change to more sedentary life ways (Price, 2000). These economic and cultural innovations arriving simultaneously during the Neolithic expansion in Europe is referred to as the ‘Neolithic package’ (Çilingiroĝlu, 2005, Jochim, 2000). Although there are some examples for earlier appearances of Neolithic innovations (Jochim, 2000), the complete ‘package’ arrives in Central Europe with the Linear Pottery Culture (Linearbandkeramik or LBK) that originated in western Hungary between 5550 and 5400 BC and spread into middle and western Europe (Bánffy, 2004, Price, 2000, Price et al., 2001, Zvelebil, 2004). The LBK expansion appears to have been a rapid process that lasted only several centuries which required a high level of mobility for the people living in LBK communities. In this context human remains from LBK sites have been analyzed in several biochemical studies using strontium isotopes (Bentley, 2007, Bentley and Knipper, 2005, Bentley et al., 2004, Price et al., 2001). The isotopic data show that at some LBK sites up to 60% of the group consisted of non-local individuals, and predominantly females tend to have migrated from other geological areas (Bentley et al., 2002, Price et al., 2001). Bioarchaeological methods have therefore become a powerful tool to reveal information on LBK mobility, marriage systems and individual life histories.

As the most striking feature of the Neolithic is the invention and spread of agriculture, analyzing the human dietary habits of this time period is of significant interest. The analysis of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope composition in human and animal bone or dentine collagen allows the reconstruction of human palaeodiets (Ambrose, 1993, Schwarcz and Schoeninger, 1991) as well as early animal husbandry strategies (Balasse et al., 2002, Balasse and Tresset, 2002, Noe-Nygaard et al., 2005). The method is based on the fact that the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen are fractionated during many biochemical reactions due to differences in atomic mass. This results in specific isotope ratios depending on the type of ecosystem (e.g. marine versus terrestrial), position in the food chain and climate conditions (Ambrose, 1993, Lee-Thorp and Sponheimer, 2007, Sealy, 2001).

The largest variations in the stable isotope ratios of carbon (δ13C) in terrestrial ecosystems are a result of different photosynthetic carbon reduction pathways (C3, C4 or CAM plants). C4 plants produce significantly higher δ13C values than C3 plants, providing a useful method to trace the domestication and production of important C4 plants like maize in the New World (Katzenberg et al., 1995, Vogel and van der Merwe, 1977). As the cultivation of C4 plants plays only a minor role in European prehistory, consumers of the temperate vegetation zone mostly feature δ13C values between −18‰ and −23‰ (Richards and van Klinken, 1997). Subtle variation in δ13C within terrestrial C3-dominated ecosystems can correspond to the density and position within a forest canopy (Drucker et al., 2008, Tieszen, 1991, van der Merwe and Medina, 1991) or can be affected by latitude and altitude (Körner et al., 1988, Körner et al., 1991).

The stable isotopes of nitrogen (δ15N) enter the biosphere from the atmosphere mainly via N-fixing soil bacteria and are then utilized by plants. Throughout different terrestrial environments variation in δ15N can be largely affected by climate, temperature, precipitation, and coastal effects (Britton et al., 2008, Heaton et al., 1986, van Klinken et al., 2000), making the analysis of faunal samples so crucial to understand the local isotopic baseline. However, in temperate terrestrial ecosystems the fractionation of δ15N is dominated by a trophic level effect. This effect leads to an enrichment in δ15N from diet to body tissue by 2–5‰, on an average 3‰, whereas δ13C only shows modest enrichment of ∼1‰ for each step in the food chain (Ambrose, 1991, DeNiro and Epstein, 1981, Hedges and Reynard, 2007, Minagawa and Wada, 1984). In terrestrial carnivores we measure higher δ15N values (typically around 10–12‰), lower values of around 4–6‰ in herbivores and intermediate values for omnivorous species (Fizet et al., 1995). As nitrogen is most abundant in the protein fraction of body tissues in the form of amino acids, measures of bone collagen mainly reflect the isotopic composition of dietary protein intake (Ambrose, 1993). Carbon isotope ratios in collagen also reflect the protein component of diet, whereas measures of carbon isotope ratios in apatite potentially provide information on dietary energy (carbohydrates and lipids) intake (Ambrose and Norr, 1993, Kellner and Schoeninger, 2007). However, analyzing bone apatite remains controversial in terms of contamination and alteration (Koch et al., 1997).

For Central Europe, dietary studies on Neolithic human populations using stable isotopes are only available for Germany (Asam et al., 2006, Dürrwächter et al., 2006, Meyer et al., 2007, Nehlich et al., 2009a, Nehlich et al., 2009b) and Slovenia (Ogrinc and Budja, 2005), and there are few case studies for the earliest periods of the Neolithic. For the LBK, the only data published are from the sites of Herxheim (n = 21) and Nieder-Mörlen (n = 12) (Dürrwächter et al., 2006, Nehlich et al., 2009b). Dürrwächter et al. (2006) found the same terrestrial-based omnivorous diet for individuals from Herxheim as for the two middle Neolithic populations in their study. Yet three individuals were enriched in δ15N probably due to freshwater fish consumption. The heterogeneous values from Herxheim support the assumption that the sampled human remains derive from different spatially dispersed LBK communities. Nehlich et al. (2009b) also describe a terrestrial omnivore diet for Nieder-Mörlen. They could find slight differences in δ15N between the LBK and the earlier phase Flomborn, yet sample size is small. A third dataset from different LBK sites in Bavaria (total n = 24) unfortunately lacked isotopic information from associated fauna (Asam et al., 2006), which are imperative for interpreting human isotope data.

For a better understanding of early Neolithic subsistence more data on these first European farmers are required. Here we present the most extensive palaeodietary reconstruction applying stable isotopes to the remains of human LBK individuals and associated fauna from three recently excavated sites in Central Germany. The human remains were found in association with settlements and represent several generations of three living LBK communities.

Section snippets

Archaeological sites and material

The material of this study derives from three LBK sites, Derenburg Meerenstieg II, Halberstadt Sonntagsfeld and Karsdorf, which are located in the loess regions of present day Saxony-Anhalt. The sites date from the earlier to the later phases of the LBK (Meier-Arendt, 1966), though a more detailed chronology of the LBK is still not available for this region. AMS radiocarbon dates are available for Derenburg and Halberstadt and range from 5200 cal BC to 4800 cal BC (Fritsch et al., in press),

Methods

Prior to isotope analysis, age and sex determinations were conducted at the osteological laboratory of the Institute for Anthropology, Mainz, Germany and are listed in Table 1. Both sexes and all age classes could be identified in the sample using different morphological and metric methods (Brooks and Suchey, 1990, Ferembach et al., 1980, Knußmann, 1988, Lovejoy, 1985, Lovejoy et al., 1985, Meindl and Lovejoy, 1985, Murail et al., 2005, Phenice, 1969, Ubelaker, 1989).

Rib bones were

Results and discussion

The mean results for each duplicate measurement are shown for each sample in Table 1, Table 2. All collagen samples are well preserved and meet the published quality criteria of %C, %N and C/N ratios (Ambrose, 1990, DeNiro, 1985, van Klinken, 1999). Three samples have collagen yield less than 1% due to the generally higher losses of degraded collagen during the ultra filtration step (Jørkov, 2007). These samples were considered acceptable as the other collagen quality criteria were met.

The

Conclusion

The human and animal samples from the LBK sites Derenburg, Halberstadt and Karsdorf represent the first farming communities in Central Germany. This sample is the most substantial and detailed dataset on carbon and nitrogen isotopes available for prehistoric Germany and gives insight on different aspects of human subsistence and animal husbandry in the early Neolithic. Although we suggest that the Derenburg population ate less quantities of animal protein than the people in Halberstadt and

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and by Geocycles, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. The isotope analysis was generously funded by the Max Planck Society. We thank Barbara Fritsch and Robert Ganslmeier from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology, Saxony-Anhalt, for archaeological background information, as well as Hans-Jürgen Döhle for assessing the faunal remains. Furthermore we thank Michael Richards for permission to do isotopic

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