Stable isotopic insights into crop cultivation, animal husbandry, and land use at the Linearbandkeramik site of Vráble-Veľké Lehemby (Slovakia)

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-020-01210-2 (2020) 12:256 ORIGINAL PAPER Stable isotopic insights into crop cultivation, animal husbandry, and land use at the Linearbandkeramik site of Vráble-Veľké Lehemby (Slovakia) Rosalind E. Gillis 1 & Rebekka Eckelmann 2 & Dragana Filipović 2 & Nils Müller-Scheeßel 2 & Ivan Cheben 3 & Martin Furholt 2,4 & Cheryl A. Makarewicz 1,2 Received: 10 January 2020 / Accepted: 9 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020 Abstract The plant and animal components of Linearbandkeramik (LBK) subsistence systems were remarkably uniform with cattle, emmer and einkorn wheat providing the primary source of sustenance for Europe’s earliest agricultural communities. This apparent homogeneity in plant and animal use has been implicitly understood to indicate corresponding similarity in the types of husbandry practices employed by LBK farmers across the entire distribution of the LBK culture. Here, we examine the results from the stable (δ13C/δ15N) isotope analysis of animal bone and cereal grains from the site of Vráble-Veľké Lehemby (Slovakia), providing new information about Linearbandkeramik farming practices in the western Carpathians. Moderately high carbon isotope values from animal bone collagen show that all livestock were pastured in open areas with no evidence of forest pasturing, previously associated with LBK settlements in north-western Europe. High δ15N values measured from domesticated cereal grains suggest manuring took place at the site, while 15N enrichment in bone collagen suggest livestock fed on agricultural byproducts and possibly grains. An integrated plant-animal management system was in use at Vráble where livestock grazed on cultivation plots post-harvest. Use of such strategy would have helped fatten animals before the lean winter months while simultaneously fertilising agricultural plots with manure. This study contributes to our growing understanding that although the building blocks of LBK subsistence strategies were remarkably similar, diversity in management strategies existed across central and north-western Europe. Keywords Animal husbandry . Crop cultivation . Land use . Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes . Linearbandkeramik . Slovakia Introduction The Linearbandkeramik (LBK) is associated with the initial spread of farming and livestock herding across central and north-western Europe during the mid-late sixth millennium * Rosalind E. Gillis 1 Graduate School: Human Development in Landscapes, Kiel University, 24118 Kiel, Germany 2 Institute for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, Kiel University, 24118 Kiel, Germany 3 Archaeological Institute, Slovakian Academy of Sciences, Nitra, Akademická 969/2, 949 01 Nitra-Chrenová, Slovakia 4 Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1019, Blindern, N-0315 Oslo, Norway cal BC, a process that ultimately incorporated indigenous hunter-gatherers through acculturation or replacement (Gronenborn 2003; Lipson et al. 2017). LBK groups emerged from the Transdanubian linear pottery (TLP) groups in the northern Carpathian region around 5600 cal BC and rapidly expanded west, reaching central and eastern Europe by 5400 cal BC, and its north-western limit in the Paris basin by the mid-sixth millennium BC (Bickle and Whittle 2013; Gronenborn 2003; Pavlů 2005). LBK groups relied primarily on cattle, although pigs, sheep and goats were also exploited at varying intensities (Gillis et al. 2017, 2019; Lüning 2000; Manning et al. 2013b; Marciniak 2013). Cattle herds were largely comprised of adult animals, probably females, and exploited for their milk and meat (Gillis et al. 2017). Dairying was an important subsistence practice, indicated by some post-lactation slaughter of male calves when they were no longer needed for milk let-down. The importance of dairy in LBK societies is further demonstrated by the predominance 256 Page 2 of 15 of dairy fats in pottery, replacing the exploitation of fats from bone marrow and bone grease (Johnson et al. 2018), and the processing of milk into storable products, such as cheese (Salque et al. 2013). Beef was likely consumed as part of feasting events that brought communities together (Marciniak 2005). The focus on bringing most cattle into adulthood suggests considerable investment in their animals by LBK stockherders (Russell 1998), one that required careful planning to ensure large quantities of graze and browse were available as feed year round. LBK communities also farmed a reduced package of Near Eastern plant domesticates, greatly curtailed in taxonomic diversity due to cooler temperatures and wetter conditions in European temperate environments (Ivanova et al. 2018; Kreuz 2007; Kreuz and Schäfer 2011). The cultivation of hulled wheats, such as emmer (Triticum monococcum) and einkorn (Triticum dicoccum), may have been exploited by LBK farmers because the glume protected the grain from freezing and wet growing conditions as well as damp storage conditions (Colledge and Conolly 2007) and therefore better suited for temperate continental climates. Overall, einkorn and emmer wheats were raised on permanent garden plots and were the primary cultivars exploited by LBK groups (Bogaard 2004), while barley (Hordeum vulgare) and legumes (pea (Pisum sativum) and lentil (Lens culinaris)) were rarely farmed (Bogaard 2004; Kreuz 2007; Saqalli et al. 2014). Livestock herds also produce a key ingredient for crop cultivation: manure, which may have been deliberately collected and spread on fields or introduced through animals being penned on cultivation plots to graze on harvest residues. Although limited in number, stable isotopic analyses of carbonised seed remains are revealing that plant management strategies practised by LBK farmers were concerned with the fertilisation of crops in order to ensure production and possibly to increase yields (Fraser et al. 2013; Styring et al. 2017). The plant and animal building blocks of LBK subsistence systems and the productive outcomes of those systems appear at first glance to have been remarkably homogenous across Europe (Manning et al. 2013b). Although recent studies have highlighted some difference between sexes, with males apparently consuming more protein than females, within the LBK sphere (Bickle and Whittle 2013), ancient DNA analysis has reinforced the traditional image of the LBK as the outcome of monolithic demic and cultural diffusion with little inherent diversity (Bramanti et al. 2009; Lazaridis et al. 2016). The apparent uniformity of LBK subsistence practices is surprising given that LBK groups inhabited assorted habitats ranging from riverine valleys with sparse woodland stands to dense mixed deciduous or alpine forests that bristled with swamps. Furthermore, these landscapes were set across a variety of climatic zones, which follow a general gradient of increased precipitation from east to west and decrease (...truncated)