Reconstructing Bronze Age diets and farming strategies at the early Bronze Age sites of La Bastida and Gatas (southeast Iberia) using stable isotope analysis
Knipper, Corina (Curt Engelhorn Center Archaeometry gGmbH)
Rihuete Herrada, Cristina (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Prehistòria)
Voltas, Jordi (Universitat de Lleida)
Held, Petra (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz)
Lull, Vicente 1949- (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Prehistòria)
Micó Pérez, Rafael (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Prehistòria)
Risch, Robert (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Prehistòria)
Alt, Kurt W. (Universität Basel)

Data:	2020
Resum:	The El Argar society of the Bronze Age in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula (2200-1550 cal BCE) was among the first complex societies in Europe. Its economy was based on cereal cultivation and metallurgy, it was organized hierarchically, and successively expanded its territory. Most of the monumentally fortified settlements lay on steeply sloped mountains, separated by fertile plains, and allowed optimal control of the area. Here, we explore El Argar human diets, animal husbandry strategies, and food webs using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of charred cereal grains as well as human and animal bone collagen. The sample comprised 75 human individuals from the sites of La Bastida (n = 52) and Gatas (n = 23), 32 domesticated and wild animals as well as 76 barley and 29 wheat grains from two chronological phases of a total time span of ca. 650 years. The grains indicate extensive cereal cultivation under rain-fed conditions with little to moderate application of manure. Especially at La Bastida, crops and their by-products contributed significantly to the forage of the domesticated animals, which attests to a strong interrelation of cultivation and animal husbandry. Trophic level spacing and Bayesian modelling confirm that human diets were largely based on barley with some contribution of meat or dairy products. A cross-sectional analysis of bone collagen suggests that children were breastfed until about 1. 5-2 years old, and infants from Gatas may have suffered from more metabolic stress than those at La Bastida. Adults of both sexes consumed similar diets that reflect social and chronological variation to some extent. Despite significantly higher δC and δN values at La Bastida than at Gatas, the isotopic data of the staple crops and domestic animals from both sites indicate that such differences do not necessarily correspond to different average human diets, but to agricultural strategies. These results urge for a reassessment of previous isotope studies in which only human remains have been taken into account. The study highlights that disentangling the complex influences on human isotope compositions requires a firm set of comparative data.
Ajuts:	Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-1044 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad HAR2014-53860-P Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad HAR2017-85962-P
Nota:	Altres ajuts: DFG/AL287/14-1
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Adolescent ; Adult ; Animal Husbandry ; Animals ; Domestic Animals ; Wild animals ; Archaeology ; Bone and bones ; Carbon isotopes ; Child ; Preschool child ; Agricultural crops ; Diet ; Edible grain ; Female ; Ancient history ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Nitrogen isotopes ; Spain ; Young adult
Publicat a:	PloS one, Vol. 15, núm. 3 (2020) , p. e0229398, ISSN 1932-6203

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229398
PMID: 32160202

31 p, 4.6 MB

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