Living off the land: Terrestrial-based diet and dairying in the farming communities of the Neolithic Balkans

Abstract

The application of biomolecular techniques to archaeological materials from the Balkans is providing valuable new information on the prehistory of the region. This is especially relevant for the study of the neolithisation process in SE Europe, which gradually affected the rest of the continent. Here, to answer questions regarding diet and subsistence practices in early farming societies in the central Balkans, we combine organic residue analyses of archaeological pottery, taxonomic and isotopic study of domestic animal remains and biomolecular analyses of human dental calculus. The results from the analyses of the lipid residues from pottery suggest that milk was processed in ceramic vessels. Dairy products were shown to be part of the subsistence strategies of the earliest Neolithic communities in the region but were of varying importance in different areas of the Balkan. Conversely, milk proteins were not detected within the dental calculus. The molecular and isotopic identification of meat, dairy, plants and beeswax in the pottery lipids also provided insights into the diversity of diet in these early Neolithic communities, mainly based on terrestrial resources. We also present the first compound-specific radiocarbon dates for the region, obtained directly from absorbed organic residues extracted from pottery, identified as dairy lipids.

Seasonal calving in European Prehistoric cattle and its impacts on milk availability and cheese-making

“…The presence of dairy lipid residues in ceramic pots provides direct evidence of milk processing in the sixth millennium BC in the Balkans 29 , 31 , where they were in some instances directly dated 31 , as well as in the Carpathian Basin 24 , southern France 28 , eastern France 60 and in Poland 27 , 61 , 62 . In the early Neolithic contexts in Central Europe, cattle predominate in the faunal assemblages and demographic management inferred from mortality profiles strongly suggests milk exploitation 30 .…”

“…In this study, we present a new European-scale dataset of stable oxygen isotope measurements in tooth enamel, enabling the reconstruction of the calving pattern. Considering that milk was exploited by prehistoric farming societies at that time and earlier 24 – 31 , how the calving pattern impacted the seasonal availability of milk and ultimately cheese making is also discussed.…”

Generation of Two New Radiocarbon Standards for Compound-Specific Radiocarbon Analyses of Fatty Acids From Bog Butter Finds

“…Our first radiocarbon dates of pottery vessels from well-dated sites/cultural phases proved to be entirely compatible with site chronologies and radiocarbon dates on conventional materials (Casanova et al 2020a). We then applied the new CSRA method to the dating of sites lacking conventionally dateable materials (Casanova et al 2020a;Stojanovski et al 2020a), to verify the antiquity of lipids within pots (Dunne et al 2019;Fewlass et al 2020), to directly date the use of specific food products (ruminant dairy and adipose fats) (Casanova et al 2020a(Casanova et al , 2020bStojanovski et al 2020b) and to evaluate marine reservoir effects arising from marine product processing in pottery vessels (Casanova et al 2020c).…”

Cultured Milk

“…Here, open bowls, not dissimilar to the "cream bowls" of the sixth millennium BCE Halaf culture (Mallowan and Cruickshank-Rose 1935), yielded caseins and whey proteins from goat, sheep, and cattle in addition to meat, cereal, and pulse proteins, pointing to a mixed use of the vessels, with the possible exception of a jug that yielded only whey proteins. With the interesting exception of the latest levels of Çatalhöyük East around 6000 cal BCE (Roffet- Salque et al 2018), evidence for milk lipids is the rule in the biogeochemical record of Neolithic sites of the Mediterranean and Southeast and Central Europe (Budja et al 2013;Craig et al 2005;Cubas et al 2020;Debono Spiteri et al 2016;Evershed et al 2008;McClure et al 2018;Salque et al 2012Salque et al , 2013Stojanovski et al 2020;Thissen et al 2010). These findings are surprising in light of the attested lack of lactase persistence in the first farmers of Central Europe, whose ancestry reflects the genetic makeup of past Near Eastern populations (Burger et al 2007;Skourtanioti et al 2020).…”