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- Seasonal calving in European Prehistoric cattle and its impacts on milk availability and cheese-makingPublication . Balasse, Marie; Gillis, Rosalind; Živaljević, Ivana; Berthon, Rémi; Kovačiková, Lenka; Fiorillo, Denis; Arbogast, Rose-Marie; Bălăşescu, Adrian; Bréhard, Stéphanie; Nyerges, Éva Á.; Dimitrijević, Vesna; Bánffy, Eszter; Domboróczki, László; Marciniak, Arkadiusz; Oross, Krisztián; Vostrovská, Ivana; Roffet-Salque, Mélanie; Stefanović, Sofija; Ivanova, MariaPresent-day domestic cattle are reproductively active throughout the year, which is a major asset for dairy production. Large wild ungulates, in contrast, are seasonal breeders, as were the last historic representatives of the aurochs, the wild ancestors of cattle. Aseasonal reproduction in cattle is a consequence of domestication and herding, but exactly when this capacity developed in domestic cattle is still unknown and the extent to which early farming communities controlled the seasonality of reproduction is debated. Seasonal or aseasonal calving would have shaped the socio-economic practices of ancient farming societies differently, structuring the agropastoral calendar and determining milk availability where dairying is attested. In this study, we reconstruct the calving pattern through the analysis of stable oxygen isotope ratios of cattle tooth enamel from 18 sites across Europe, dating from the 6th mill. cal BC (Early Neolithic) in the Balkans to the 4th mill. cal BC (Middle Neolithic) in Western Europe. Seasonal calving prevailed in Europe between the 6th and 4th millennia cal BC. These results suggest that cattle agropastoral systems in Neolithic Europe were strongly constrained by environmental factors, in particular forage resources. The ensuing fluctuations in milk availability would account for cheese-making, transforming a seasonal milk supply into a storable product.
- Specialized cattle farming in the Neolithic Rhine-Meuse Delta: Results from zooarchaeological and stable isotope (δ18O, δ13C, δ15N) analysesPublication . Kamjan, Safoora; Gillis, Rosalind; Çakırlar, Canan; Raemaekers, Daan C. M.Schipluiden (3630-3380 cal BC), the earliest known year-round settlement in the Rhine-Meuse Delta in the Netherlands, is a key site for addressing the nature of Neolithic subsistence in the wetlands of northwestern Europe. A preliminary zooarchaeological study suggested that cattle husbandry was a major activity at Schipluiden. In contrast, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of human remains from the site indicated a marine-oriented diet, implying that the Mesolithic-Neolithic dietary transition continued well into the mid-4th Millennium BC in this region. Here, we re-investigate the role and nature of cattle husbandry at Neolithic Schipluiden using mortality profiles and stable isotope analysis (δ18O, δ13C, δ15N) of animal bone collagen and tooth enamel. The age-at-death analysis suggests that cattle were managed for both meat and milk production. The δ18O and δ13C analysis of tooth enamel provide evidence that calving spread over five-and-a-half-months, which would have led to a longer availability of milk throughout the year. Cattle were grazing in open, marshy environments near the site and winter foddering was practiced occasionally. The faunal isotopic data also reveal that the high 15N in human bone collagen is more likely to signal the consumption of products from cattle that grazed on 15N-enriched salt marsh plants around the site, rather than a marine-oriented diet. This undermines the previous interpretation of the dietary practices at Schipluiden by showing that human diet in mid-4th millennium BC Rhine-Meuse area was fully "Neolithic", based primarily on products from domesticates, especially cattle, with some input from wild terrestrial and aquatic resources available in their surroundings, contrary to what has been proposed before. Collating these results demonstrates a high level of investment in cattle husbandry, highlighting the social and economic importance of cattle at the lower Rhine-Meuse Delta during the 4th millennium BC.
- Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in EuropePublication . Evershed, Richard P.; Davey Smith, George; Roffet-Salque, Mélanie; Timpson, Adrian; Diekmann, Yoan; Lyon, Matthew S.; Cramp, Lucy J. E.; Casanova, Emmanuelle; Smyth, Jessica; Whelton, Helen L.; Dunne, Julie; Brychova, Veronika; Šoberl, Lucija; Gerbault, Pascale; Gillis, Rosalind; Heyd, Volker; Johnson, Emily; Kendall, Iain; Manning, Katie; Marciniak, Arkadiusz; Outram, Alan K.; Vigne, Jean-Denis; Shennan, Stephen; Bevan, Andrew; Colledge, Sue; Allason-Jones, Lyndsay; Amkreutz, Luc; Anders, Alexandra; Arbogast, Rose-Marie; Bălăşescu, Adrian; Bánffy, Eszter; Barclay, Alistair; Behrens, Anja; Bogucki, Peter; Carrancho Alonso, Ángel; Carretero, José Miguel; Cavanagh, Nigel; Claßen, Erich; Collado Giraldo, Hipolito; Conrad, Matthias; Csengeri, Piroska; Czerniak, Lech; Dębiec, Maciej; Denaire, Anthony; Domboróczki, László; Donald, Christina; Ebert, Julia; Evans, Christopher; Francés-Negro, Marta; Gronenborn, Detlef; Haack, Fabian; Halle, Matthias; Hamon, Caroline; Hülshoff, Roman; Ilett, Michael; Iriarte, Eneko; Jakucs, János; Jeunesse, Christian; Johnson, Melanie; Jones, Andy M.; Karul, Necmi; Kiosak, Dmytro; Kotova, Nadezhda; Krause, Rüdiger; Kretschmer, Saskia; Krüger, Marta; Lefranc, Philippe; Lelong, Olivia; Lenneis, Eva; Logvin, Andrey; Lüth, Friedrich; Marton, Tibor; Marley, Jane; Mortimer, Richard; Oosterbeek, Luiz; Oross, Krisztián; Pavúk, Juraj; Pechtl, Joachim; Pétrequin, Pierre; Pollard, Joshua; Pollard, Richard; Powlesland, Dominic; Pyzel, Joanna; Raczky, Pál; Richardson, Andrew; Rowe, Peter; Rowland, Stephen; Rowlandson, Ian; Saile, Thomas; Sebők, Katalin; Schier, Wolfram; Schmalfuß, Germo; Sharapova, Svetlana; Sharp, Helen; Sheridan, Alison; Shevnina, Irina; Sobkowiak-Tabaka, Iwona; Stadler, Peter; Stäuble, Harald; Stobbe, Astrid; Stojanovski, Darko; Tasić, Nenad; van Wijk, Ivo; Vostrovská, Ivana; Vuković, Jasna; Wolfram, Sabine; Zeeb-Lanz, Andrea; Thomas, Mark G.In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years(1). Although the selection of LP and the consumption of prehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configuration and specific interactions(2,3). Here we provide detailed distributions of milk exploitation across Europe over the past 9,000 years using around 7,000 pottery fat residues from more than 550 archaeological sites. European milk use was widespread from the Neolithic period onwards but varied spatially and temporally in intensity. Notably, LP selection varying with levels of prehistoric milk exploitation is no better at explaining LP allele frequency trajectoriesthan uniform selection since the Neolithic period. In the UK Biobank(4,5) cohort of 500,000 contemporary Europeans, LP genotype was only weakly associated with milk consumption and did not show consistent associations with improved fitness or health indicators. This suggests that other reasons for the beneficial effects of LP should be considered for its rapid frequency increase. We propose that lactase non-persistent individuals consumed milk when it became available but, under conditions of famine and/or increased pathogen exposure, this was disadvantageous, driving LP selection in prehistoric Europe. Comparison of model likelihoods indicates that population fluctuations, settlement density and wild animal exploitation-proxies for these drivers-provide better explanations of LP selection than the extent of milk exploitation. These findings offer new perspectives on prehistoric milk exploitation and LP evolution.
- Food and farming systems in the Neolithic – an impossible vista?Publication . Smyth, Jessica; Gillis, RosalindThe management and utilisation of mostly novel plant and animal species for food and other products has long been recognised as a central component of the Neolithic. The period has frequently been characterised as marking a tipping point in food procurement activities, a shift that has had a fundamental impact on societies today. While there may be little difference between the modes and means of subsistence strategies (e.g. Ingold 1988) – from hunting to management of domesticated species, and from collection of wild plants to planting and cropping of domesticate cultivars – what is significantly different is that for the first time over large regions of Europe the major building blocks of Neolithic diet were the same, i.e. cereal and pulse cultivars and domesticate animal species. Across this vast geographic span, we might expect that such building blocks were re-configured and adapted at local or regional scales (e.g. Manning et al. 2013). There is also growing evidence for differences in organisational scale, e.g. between intensive small-scale garden plots and extensive systems of transhumance (Bogaard et al. 2016; Montes et al. 2020); differences in resource utilisation, e.g. mountain pastures and forests (Schibler 2017; Knockaert et al. 2017; Hejcmanová, Stejskalová, and Hejcman 2013); differences in how plant and animal systems integrated with one another (Fraser et al. 2013; Styring et al. 2017; Gillis et al. 2017), as well as differences in food processing techniques. This variation appears as much related to the pre-existing needs and cultural identity of populations as to the environmental context and niche construction (e.g. Kreuz and Marinova 2017; Gillis et al. 2019).
- Diverse prehistoric cattle husbandry strategies in the forests of Central Europe.Publication . Gillis, Rosalind; Kendall, Iain P; Roffet-Salque, Mélanie; Zanon, Marco; Anders, Alexandra; Arbogast, Rose-Marie; Bogucki, Peter; Brychova, Veronika; Casanova, Emmanuelle; Classen, Erich; Csengeri, Piroska; Czerniak, Lech; Domboróczki, László; Fiorillo, Denis; Gronenborn, Detlef; Hachem, Lamys; Jakucs, János; Ilett, Michael; Lyublyanovics, Kyra; Lenneis, Eva; Marciniak, Arkadiusz; Marton, Tibor; Oross, Krisztián; Pavúk, Juraj; Pechtl, Joachim; Pyzel, Joanna; Stadler, Peter; Stäuble, Harald; Vostrovská, Ivana; van Wijk, Ivo; Vigne, Jean-Denis; Balasse, Marie; Evershed, Richard PDuring the sixth millennium bce, the first farmers of Central Europe rapidly expanded across a varied mosaic of forested environments. Such environments would have offered important sources of mineral-rich animal feed and shelter, prompting the question: to what extent did early farmers exploit forests to raise their herds? Here, to resolve this, we have assembled multi-regional datasets, comprising bulk and compound-specific stable isotope values from zooarchaeological remains and pottery, and conducted cross-correlation analyses within a palaeo-environmental framework. Our findings reveal a diversity of pasturing strategies for cattle employed by early farmers, with a notable emphasis on intensive utilization of forests for grazing and seasonal foddering in some regions. This experimentation with forest-based animal feeds by early farmers would have enhanced animal fertility and milk yields for human consumption, concurrently contributing to the expansion of prehistoric farming settlements and the transformation of forest ecosystems. Our study emphasizes the intricate relationship that existed between early farmers and forested landscapes, shedding light on the adaptive dynamics that shaped humans, animals and environments in the past. Stable isotope analysis of zooarchaeological remains and pottery in a palaeo-environmental framework reveals that early Central European farmers utilized diverse regional pasturing strategies for cattle, including the use of forested environments for grazing and seasonal foddering.