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

Darko Stojanovski (1) , Ivana Živaljević (1) , Vesna Dimitrijević (1, 2) , Julie Dunne (3) , Richard P. Evershed (3) , Marie Balasse (4) , Adam Dowle (5) , Jessica Hendy (5) , Krista Mcgrath (5) , Roman Fischer (6) , Camilla Speller (5, 7) , Jelena Jovanović (1, 2) , Emmanuelle Casanova (3) , Timothy Knowles (3) , Lidija Balj (8) , Goce Naumov (9) , Andelka Putica (10) , Andrej Starovic (11) , Sofija Stefanović (1, 2)

1 University of Novi Sad
2 University of Belgrade [Belgrade]
3 University of Bristol [Bristol]
4 AASPE - Archéozoologie, archéobotanique : sociétés, pratiques et environnements
5 University of York [York, UK]
6 University of Oxford
7 UBC - University of British Columbia
8 Museum of Vojvodina
9 National Institution Museum of Macedonia
10 The Town Museum of Sombor
11 National Museum in Belgrade

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.

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire

Darko Stojanovski, Ivana Živaljević, Vesna Dimitrijević, Julie Dunne, Richard P. Evershed, et al.. Living off the land: Terrestrial-based diet and dairying in the farming communities of the Neolithic Balkans. PLoS ONE, 2020, 15 (8), pp.e0237608. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0237608⟩. ⟨hal-03028798⟩