Crop manuring and intensive land management by Europe’s first farmers

1. Amy Bogaard^a,¹,
2. Rebecca Fraser^a,
3. Tim H. E. Heaton^b,
4. Michael Wallace^c,
5. Petra Vaiglova^a,
6. Michael Charles^a,
7. Glynis Jones^c,
8. Richard P. Evershed^d,
9. Amy K. Styring^a,
10. Niels H. Andersen^e,
11. Rose-Marie Arbogast^f,
12. László Bartosiewicz^g,
13. Armelle Gardeisen^h,
14. Marie Kanstrupⁱ,
15. Ursula Maier^j,
16. Elena Marinova^k,
17. Lazar Ninov^l,
18. Marguerita Schäfer^m, and
19. Elisabeth Stephanⁿ

1. 
   
   ^aSchool of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2PG, United Kingdom;
2. 
   
   ^bNatural Environment Research Council, Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, United Kingdom;
3. 
   
   ^cDepartment of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Northgate House, Sheffield S1 4ET, United Kingdom;
4. 
   
   ^dSchool of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1TS, United Kingdom;
5. 
   
   ^eMoesgård Museum, Højbjerg 8270, Denmark;
6. 
   
   ^fMaison Interuniversitaire des Sciences l’Homme-Alsace, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Unité Mixte de Recherche 7044, Strasbourg 67083, France;
7. 
   
   ^gSchool of History, Classics, and Archaeology, Old Medical School, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, United Kingdom;
8. 
   
   ^hCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Unité Mixte de Recherche, Lattes 34970, France;
9. 
   
   ⁱDepartment of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Tjele 8830, Denmark;
10. 
    
    ^jLandesamt für Denkmalpflege, Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart, Hemmenhofen 78343, Germany;
11. 
    
    ^kCentre for Archaeological Sciences, University of Leuven, Leuven 3001, Belgium;
12. 
    
    ^lNational Institute of Archaeology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia 1000, Bulgaria;
13. 
    
    ^mIntegrative Prähistorische und Naturwissenschaftlichen Archäologie, Universität Basel, Basel 4055, Switzerland; and
14. 
    
    ⁿLandesamt für Denkmalpflege, Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart, Konstanz 78467, Germany

1. Edited by Dolores R. Piperno, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Fairfax, Washington DC, and approved June 10, 2013 (received for review April 5, 2013)

   출처 : http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/07/10/1305918110.abstract?sid=d5af7a4d-c551-4843-a122-d124905263e2

Abstract

The spread of farming from western Asia to Europe had profound long-term social and ecological impacts, but identification of the specific nature of Neolithic land management practices and the dietary contribution of early crops has been problematic. Here, we present previously undescribed stable isotope determinations of charred cereals and pulses from 13 Neolithic sites across Europe (dating ca. 5900–2400 cal B.C.), which show that early farmers used livestock manure and water management to enhance crop yields. Intensive manuring inextricably linked plant cultivation and animal herding and contributed to the remarkable resilience of these combined practices across diverse climatic zones. Critically, our findings suggest that commonly applied paleodietary interpretations of human and herbivore δ¹⁵N values have systematically underestimated the contribution of crop-derived protein to early farmer diets.