4000 years of human dietary evolution in central Germany, from the first farmers to the first elites

RESEARCH ARTICLE 4000 years of human dietary evolution in central Germany, from the first farmers to the first elites a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Münster A, Knipper C, Oelze VM, Nicklisch N, Stecher M, Schlenker B, et al. (2018) 4000 years of human dietary evolution in central Germany, from the first farmers to the first elites. PLoS ONE 13(3): e0194862. https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0194862 Editor: Siân E Halcrow, University of Otago, NEW ZEALAND Received: November 20, 2017 Accepted: March 12, 2018 Published: March 27, 2018 Copyright: © 2018 Münster et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: This research was supported by the German Research Foundation (project number 39072354) and the Geocycles Research Centre at the University of Mainz. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Angelina Münster1*, Corina Knipper2, Vicky M. Oelze3, Nicole Nicklisch4,5, Marcus Stecher1, Björn Schlenker5, Robert Ganslmeier5, Matthias Fragata6, Susanne Friederich5, Veit Dresely5, Vera Hubensack7, Guido Brandt8, HansJürgen Döhle5, Werner Vach9, Ralf Schwarz5, Carola Metzner-Nebelsick10, Harald Meller5, Kurt W. Alt4,5,11* 1 Institute of Anthropology, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, 2 Curt-Engelhorn-Centre for Archaeometry gGmbH, Mannheim, Germany, 3 Anthropology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, United States of America, 4 Center of Natural and Cultural History of Man, Danube Private University (DPU), Krems-Stein, Austria, 5 State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology, SaxonyAnhalt/State Museum of Prehistory, Halle/Saale, Germany, 6 Xylem Analytics Germany Sales GmbH & Co. KG, Mainz, Germany, 7 State Office for Heritage Management, Saxony, Dresden, Germany, 8 Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany, 9 Clinical Epidemiology Group, Center for Medical Biometry and Medical Informatics, Medical Center—University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany, 10 Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology and Provincial Roman Archaeology, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany, 11 Department of Biomedical Engineering and Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science, Basel University, Basel, Switzerland * (AM); (KWA) Abstract Investigation of human diet during the Neolithic has often been limited to a few archaeological cultures or single sites. In order to provide insight into the development of human food consumption and husbandry strategies, our study explores bone collagen carbon and nitrogen isotope data from 466 human and 105 faunal individuals from 26 sites in central Germany. It is the most extensive data set to date from an enclosed geographic microregion, covering 4,000 years of agricultural history from the Early Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. The animal data show that a variety of pastures and dietary resources were explored, but that these changed remarkably little over time. In the human δ15N however we found a significant increase with time across the different archaeological cultures. This trend could be observed in all time periods and archaeological cultures (Bell Beaker phenomenon excluded), even on continuously populated sites. Since there was no such trend in faunal isotope values, we were able largely to exclude manuring as the cause of this effect. Based on the rich interdisciplinary data from this region and archaeological period we can argue that meat consumption increased with the increasing duration of farming subsistence. In δ13C, we could not observe any clear increasing or decreasing trends during the archaeological time periods, either for humans or for animals, which would have suggested significant changes in the environment and landscape use. We discovered sex-related dietary differences, with males of all archaeological periods having higher δ15N values than females, and an age-related increasing consumption of animal protein. An initial decrease Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Further we want PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194862 March 27, 2018 1 / 32 4000 years of human dietary evolution in central Germany to declare that the company Xylem Analytics Germany Sales GmbH & Co. KG had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript at all. Xylem Analytics Germany Sales GmbH & Co. KG did not provide financial support, nor in the form of author’s salaries neither in research materials. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. of δ15N-values at the age of 1–2 years reveals partial weaning, while complete weaning took place at the age of 3–4 years. Introduction Dietary evolution is fundamental to human history [1]. Throughout most of that history, people lived as hunter-gatherers and used a range of plants and animals in their natural environment. Adaptation to different habitats and ecosystems is a feature of cultural evolution, and there is no single, “natural” human diet. Approximately 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last glaciation, the process of Neolithisation started in the Near East. The beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry irreversibly resulted in the most radical change in human economic and subsistence strategies and the largest social modification in the history of humankind [2]. Food resources became more and more abundant and constant. The consumption of cereals and other plants increased dramatically [3]. What impact did farming have on human lifestyle? The domestication of plants and animals led to changes in numerous aspects of life, including available foodstuffs, physical activities, reproductive experience, psychosocial relations, microbial interactions, toxin/allergen exposure, and sedentism. In several waves, Neolithic pioneers spread along different routes from the Fertile Crescent and reached central Europe by about 6,000 cal. BC [4,5]. Ancient DNA analyses, including mtDNA and Y-chromosome analyses, and genome-wide scans, revealed that the introduction of the “Neolithic package”, including previously unknown animals and plants, agricultural economy, sedentism, ceramics and new technologies, was closely connected to a population-genetic event [6–11]. Moreover, there is also evidence for large-scale migrations at the end of the Neolithic and in the Early Bronze Age in the form of fundamental changes in the archaeological record [7,12]. These ground-breaking insights into population dynamics in (...truncated)