Food cultures: Interdisciplinary studies of early farming food technology and palaeodiet in Southeastern Europe
Final Report Abstract
The earliest successful introduction of domestic plants and animals in Europe beyond their ecological homeland took place in the interior of the Balkans during the early sixth millennium BC. Here, within a few centuries, pioneer farmers spread northwards into areas with significantly different and hitherto unfamiliar environmental conditions. In this process, the Balkans acted as a unique „laboratory“ for the adaptation of Mediterranean farming to higher latitudes. The transformation in farming which took place in the interior of the Balkans in the early sixth millennium BC was instrumental to the succeeding spread of the originally Mediterranean crop and livestock system across the entire European continent. The „Food Cultures“ project aimed to characterise the changes in food procurement and food processing technology which accompanied this dispersal to higher latitudes. The project was designed to reveal variation in the subsistence and food technology of the earliest farming communities in southeast Europe by studying sites in three areas of contrasting cultural and biogeographic conditions - Thrace in the southern Balkans (Karanovo I period), Šumadija in the central Balkans and Transdanubia in the western Carpathian Basin (Starčevo period). The research methodology comprised four key components: (i) analysis of absorbed organic residues in pottery, (ii) stable isotope analysis of faunal remains, (iii) plant microfossil (starch and phytolith) analysis of grinding tools, and (iv) formal analysis of artefacts. Our research team included experts in the areas of prehistoric archaeology, organic residue analysis, stable isotope research, plant microfossil research, zooarchaeology and archaeobotany. The project findings added substantially to our understanding of the „Mediterranean“ and „First Temperate“ farming systems, providing direct evidence for notable differences in herding practices, plant and animal foodstuffs and food-related techniques from a range of archaeological and bioarchaeological archives. Our research demonstrated that shifts with latitude occurred in grinding technology, the exploitation of dairy products, the strategies of animal feeding and breeding, and the preferences for specific species of crops and livestock. These results raised a series of new questions around the climate-subsistence correlation, which need to be addressed by developing robust quantitative models based on combined environmental, archaeological and bioarchaeological data.
Publications
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(2017) Animal Board Invited Review: Sheep birth distribution in past herds: A review for prehistoric Europe (6th to 3rd millennia BC). Animal, 11(12), 2229-2236
Balasse, M.; Tresset, A.; Bălăşescu, A.; Blaise, E.; Tornero, C.; Gandois, H.; Fiorillo, D.; Nyerges, É.Á.; Frémondeau, D.; Banffy, E. & Ivanova, M.
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(2017) Balkan Dialogues. Negotiating Identity in the Prehistoric Balkans. London: Routledge
Gori, M. and M. Ivanova, eds.
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(2017) Earliest expansion of animal husbandry beyond the Mediterranean zone in the sixth millennium BC. Scientific Reports 7 (1): 7146
Ethier, Jonathan; Bánffy, Eszter; Vuković, Jasna; Leshtakov, Krassimir; Bacvarov, Krum; Roffet-Salque, Mélanie; Evershed, Richard P. & Ivanova, Maria
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(2018) Social Dimensions of Food in the Prehistoric Balkans. Oxford: Oxbow
Ivanova, M., Atanassov, B., Petrova, V., Takorova, D., Stockhammer, P. eds.
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(2018) „No quern, no food“? Milling technology and the spread of farming in south-eastern Europe, In: Ivanova, M., Atanassov, B., Petrova, V., Takorova, D., Stockhammer, P. Social Dimensions of Food in the Prehistoric Balkans. Oxford: Oxbow, 172-188
Ivanova, M.
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Pioneer farming in southeast Europe during the early sixth millennium BC: climate-related adaptations in the exploitation of plants and animals, PLoS ONE 13(5): e0197225
Ivanova, Maria; De Cupere, Bea; Ethier, Jonathan & Marinova, Elena
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(2019) Regional diversity in subsistence among early farmers in Southeast Europe revealed by archaeological pottery organic residues. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 286
Cramp, Lucy J. E.; Ethier, Jonathan; Urem-Kotsou, Dushka; Bonsall, Clive; Borić, Dušan; Boroneanţ, Adina; Evershed, Richard P.; Perić, Slaviša; Roffet-Salque, Mélanie; Whelton, Helen L. & Ivanova, Maria
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Growing societies: an ecological perspective on the spread of crop cultivation and animal herding in Europe, in: Gron, K., P. Rowley-Conwy, L. Sørensen (eds.), Farmers at the Frontier: A Pan-European Perspective on Neolithisation. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 202
Ivanova, M.
