Weed finds as indicators for the cultivation regime of the early Neolithic Bandkeramik culture?

Angela Kreuz 0 Eva Schafer 0 0 A. Kreuz (&) E. Schafer Landesamt fur Denkmalpflege Hessen, Archaologische und Palaontologische Denkmalpflege, SG Naturwissenschaften- Archaobotanik, Schlo Biebrich/Ostflugel, 65203 Wiesbaden, Germany Ethnographic data combined with the characteristics of the weed species from Bandkeramik settlement sites give hints for the reconstruction of Early Neolithic agricultural practises in Central Europe. In contrast to the Balkan situation with a high diversity in cultivated crops, Bandkeramik field management can be reconstructed as a simple agricultural system with emphasis on summer crop growing. Permanent fields were treated with hoes, digging sticks or similar tools, sown in spring and grazed in autumn and winter. The intensity of field management seems to increase through time as shown by diachrone comparison of archaeobotanical data from Neolithic, Iron Age and Roman times. The absence of winter-cereals such as naked wheat, grown in the Balkan Peninsula, gives a hint of a certain emphasis on stock breeding. Summer crop growing would have had the advantage that the Bandkeramik fields could be grazed after harvest until next spring and would therefore be manured at the same time. - During the second half of the sixth millennium B.C. a new farming system occurred in western Hungary and beyond. In contrast to the cultural groups of the StarcevoKoros Cris complex and its transition phase of south-west and eastern Hungary and south-eastern Europe, in Transdanubia the farmers belonging to the Bandkeramik culture started cultivating a crop spectrum that was reduced to half that occuring in the Balkan agriculture (Kreuz 2007; Kreuz in press; Kreuz et al. 2005). Early Neolithic crop growing has been interpreted by other authors as small scale, intensive garden cultivation. Examples of this are Halstead (1981, pp. 319334) small scale, stable gardening with crop rotation and regular manuring and Bakels (1978, p. 77) The fields on which the plants were grown, were of small size and lay between tall vegetation. It is not clear whether they were used for a short time or for a long period. Further examples are Gregg (1988, pp. 98, 132) small, scattered fields for cereals and small garden plots for legumes and oil plants and Bogaard (2004, p. 160) intensive garden cultivation of fixed plots that were sown in the autumn (for the discussion see also Luning 2000, pp. 181ff; van der Veen 2005; Willerding 1980, 1988). Today small scale intensive garden cultivation still can be found in the tropics for example, where high yielding crops like manioc or plantain are grown effectively on several levels on small garden plots. Here intensive management of the plots is necessary as these crops grow slowly and are planted relatively large distances apart. Due to the high yields (manioc up to 25 t/ha; http://fdcl-berlin.de/publikationen/fdcl-veroeffentlich ungen/agroenergie-glossar/maniok-agroenergie-glossar-fdcl; plantain up to 400 bananas per plant; http://www.der-gar ten.eu/gartenpflanzen/bananenpflanze.html) of the crops grown, the work involved in hoeing and weeding the spaces between the individual plants is worthwhile. In contrast, the Bandkeramik situation would be different as the Bandkeramik cereals pulses and oil/fibre plants are not so high yielding. In addition, in the case of a group of merely ten people, which is much less than assumed for a Bandkeramik hamlet, cereal field areas of about five hectares would have been needed (0.5 ha/capita, Kreuz in press, chap. 8). Calculated without fallow this is an area of at least five football grounds and appears to be more a park than a garden. It has already been concluded by Luning that Neolithic cereal growing was practised on areas beyond the space of a garden: deren Gr oenordnung uber einen Gartenbau hinausging Luning (2000, p. 181). Therefore the whole subject merits further discussion. Field management tools and related practices The Bandkeramik farmers colonized chernozem areas ideal for crop cultivation. Due to these fertile soils and the assumed weather conditions at Bandkeramik times no shifting cultivation or irrigation, but rather permanent fields on terrestrial soils outside the river valleys might be expected (Bogaard 2002, 2004). In addition manuring by the grazing animals after harvest combined with crop rotation might have been sufficient for the nutrient regime of the crops grown. This fits with the fact that the Bandkeramik weed species found regularly in the samples, such as Bromus cf. secalinus, Chenopodium album, Galium cf. aparine, G. spurium, Lapsana communis, Phleum pratense, Polygonum convolvulus, Setaria-species, Solanum nigrum etc. grow on nitrogen-rich sites today. Following Sherratt (1981, 1983), Fries (1995, p. 169) and the state of archaeozoological research (Arbogast et al. 2001; Benecke 1994, pp. 142ff.) the management of the fields was performed by hand without ploughs (for discussion and further references see Kreuz in press, chap. 7). Possible tools were hoes and all kinds of digging sticks. Ethnographic documentation reveals that one person would be able to dig an area of half a hectare within 23 weeks (Kreuz in press, chap. 7). Half a hectare is the area needed for yearly crop growing per person. Therefore it is evident from the ethnographic data that working the fields without plough should have been no problem. In addition, as shown by modern examples from bio-farming and archaeobiological experiments (Holzer 2008; Jacomet and Schibler 2007; Reynolds 1979, p. 53), pigs could have been used to break up the soil, especially if attracted by some grain or pulses spread on the ground. An additional advantage of this practice is that they would also eat the rootstocks of weeds as well as snails, insects etc. It is clear that sowing the seed had to be done in rows, as broadcast sowing requires harrowing after ploughing to prepare an even soil. Cereals and pulses germinate in the dark, so the seed corn would have to be covered by earth. In Bandkeramik times the easiest way would have been one person placing the seed in the soil followed by another person covering it with earth with their feet. Independent of the tools and methods of ploughing, it is always necessary to hoe and loosen the soil several times in April and May to prevent weeds from growing. For this weeding likewise it is practical to have sown the crop in rows. It is a paradox that working the land with sticks, hoes or whatever always favours the weeds by spreading fragments of runners, tubers, rhizomes etc. and bringing seeds into the light. The type and intensity of fieldwork and the indispensable practice of crop rotation (Pflanzliche Erzeugung 1998, p. 87) had to be adapted to the specific needs of the different crop species. For example flax (Linum usitatissimum) and poppy (Papaver somniferum) are much more demanding than the glume wheats, and flax ought to be grown on the same plot only every 7 year (...truncated)