Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:58:32.742Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Radiocarbon and Stable Isotope Evidence of Dietary Change from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages in the Iron Gates: New Results from Lepenski Vir

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

C Bonsall ,
G T Cook ,
R E M Hedges ,
T F G Higham ,
C Pickard  and
I Radovanović
C Bonsall*
Affiliation:
School of Arts, Culture and Environment, University of Edinburgh EH1 1LT, United Kingdom.
G T Cook
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom. Email: [email protected].
R E M Hedges
Affiliation:
Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford OX1 3QJ, United Kingdom.
T F G Higham
Affiliation:
Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford OX1 3QJ, United Kingdom.
C Pickard
Affiliation:
School of Arts, Culture and Environment, University of Edinburgh EH1 1LT, United Kingdom.
I Radovanović
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas, 616 Fraser, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA.
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

A previous radiocarbon dating and stable isotope study of directly associated ungulate and human bone samples from Late Mesolithic burials at Schela Cladovei in Romania established that there is a freshwater reservoir effect of approximately 500 yr in the Iron Gates reach of the Danube River valley in southeast Europe. Using the δ15N values as an indicator of the percentage of freshwater protein in the human diet, the 14C data for 24 skeletons from the site of Lepenski Vir were corrected for this reservoir effect. The results of the paired 14C and stable isotope measurements provide evidence of substantial dietary change over the period from about 9000 BP to about 300 BP. The data from the Early Mesolithic to the Chalcolithic are consistent with a 2-component dietary system, where the linear plot of isotopic values reflects mixing between the 2 end-members to differing degrees. Typically, the individuals of Mesolithic age have much heavier δ15N signals and slightly heavier δ13C, while individuals of Early Neolithic and Chalcolithic age have lighter δ15N and δ13C values. Contrary to our earlier suggestion, there is no evidence of a substantial population that had a transitional diet midway between those that were characteristic of the Mesolithic and Neolithic. However, several individuals with “Final Mesolithic” 14C ages show δ15N and δ13C values that are similar to the Neolithic dietary pattern. Provisionally, these are interpreted either as incomers who originated in early farming communities outside the Iron Gates region or as indigenous individuals representing the earliest Neolithic of the Iron Gates. The results from Roman and Medieval age burials show a deviation from the linear function, suggesting the presence of a new major dietary component containing isotopically heavier carbon. This is interpreted as a consequence of the introduction of millet into the human food chain.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 46 , Issue 1: Proceedings of the 18th International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 1 of 2), Conference Editors: Nancy Beavan Athfield, Rodger J Sparks , 2004 , pp. 293 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

Ambrose, SH. 1991. Effects of diet, climate and physiology on nitrogen isotope abundances in terrestrial foodwebs. Journal of Archaeological Science 18:293–317.Google Scholar
Bartosiewicz, L, Bonsall, C, Boroneant, V, Stallibrass, S. 1995. Schela Cladovei: a preliminary review of the prehistoric fauna. Mesolithic Miscellany 16(2):2–19.Google Scholar
Bonsall, C, Lennon, R, McSweeney, K, Stewart, C, Harkness, D, Boroneant, V, Payton, R, Bartosiewicz, L, Chapman, JC. 1997. Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in the Iron Gates: a palaeodietary perspective. Journal of European Archaeology 5(1):50–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonsall, C, Cook, G, Lennon, R, Harkness, D, Scott, M, Bartosiewicz, L, McSweeney, K. 2000. Stable isotopes, radiocarbon and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Iron Gates. Documenta Praehistorica 27:119–132.Google Scholar
Bonsall, C, Macklin, MG, Payton, RW, Boronean$tL, A. 2002. Climate, floods and river gods: environmental change and the Meso–Neolithic transition in southeast Europe. Before Farming: The Archaeology of Old World Hunter-Gatherers 3–4(2):1–15.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, Hedges, REM. 1997. Hybrid ion sources: radiocarbon measurements from microgram to milligram. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 123:539–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, Pettitt, PB, Hedges, REM, Hodgins, GWL, Owen, DC. 2000. Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS system: Archaeometry Datelist 30. Archaeometry 42(2):459–79.Google Scholar
Brown, TA, Nelson, DE, Vogel, JS, Southon, JR. 1988. Improved collagen extraction by modified Longin method. Radiocarbon 30(1):171–7.Google Scholar
Budd, P, Montgomery, J, Evans, J, Chenery, C. 2001. Combined Pb-, Sr- and O-isotope analysis of human dental tissue for the reconstruction of archaeological residential mobility. In: Holland, JG, Tanner, SD, editors. Plasma Source Mass Spectrometry: The New Millennium. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry Special Publication. p 311–26.Google Scholar
Clason, AT. 1980. Padina and Starčevo: game, fish and cattle. Palaeohistoria XXII:142–73.Google Scholar
Cook, GT, Bonsall, C, Hedges, REM, McSweeney, K, Boroneanl, V, Pettitt, PB. 2001. A freshwater diet-derived 14C reservoir effect at the Stone Age sites in the Iron Gates gorge. In: Carmi, I, Boaretto, E, editors. Proceedings of the 17th International Radiocarbon Conference, Judean Hills, Israel, 18–23 June 2000. Radiocarbon 43(2A):453–60.Google Scholar
Cook, GT, Bonsall, C, Hedges, REM, McSweeney, K, Boronean$tL, V, Bartosiewicz, L, Pettitt, PB. 2002. Problems of dating human bones from the Iron Gates. Antiquity 76:77–85.Google Scholar
Coplen, TB. 1994. Reporting of stable hydrogen, carbon and oxygen isotopic abundances. Pure and Applied Chemistry 66:273–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gimbutas, M. 1991. The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe. San Francisco: Harper.Google Scholar
Hedges, REM, Law, IA, Bronk, CR, Housley, RA. 1989. The Oxford accelerator mass spectrometry facility: technical developments in routine dating. Archaeometry 31:99–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lanting, JN, van der Plicht, J. 1998. Reservoir effects and apparent 14C ages. Journal of Irish Archaeology IX: 151–65.Google Scholar
Law, IA, Hedges, REM. 1989. A semi-automated bone pretreatment system and the pretreatment of older and contaminated samples. Radiocarbon 31(2):247–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Little, JDC, Little, EA. 1997. Analysing prehistoric diets by linear programming. Journal of Archaeological Science 24:741–7.Google Scholar
Mays, S. 1998. The Archaeology of Human Bones. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Murray, M, Schoeninger, M. 1988. Diet, status and complex social structure in Iron Age Central Europe: some contributions of bone chemistry. In: Gibson, DB, Geselowitz, MN, editors. Tribe and Polity in Late Prehistoric Europe: Demography, Production and Exchange in the Evolution of Complex Social Systems. New York: Plenum. p 155–76.Google Scholar
Ogrinc, N. 1999. Stable isotope evidence of the diet of the Neolithic population in Slovenia—a case study: Ajdovska jama. Documenta Praehistorica 26:193–200.Google Scholar
Price, T, Bentley, R, Luning, J, Detlef, G, Wahl, J. 2001. Prehistoric human migration in the Linearbandkeramik of central Europe. Antiquity 75:593–603.Google Scholar
Quitta, H. 1972. The dating of radiocarbon samples. In: Srejović, D. Europe's First Monumental Sculpture. New Discoveries at Lepenski Vir. London: Thames and Hudson. p 205–10.Google Scholar
Radovanović, I. 1996. Mesolithic/Neolithic contacts: a case of the Iron Gates region. Poročilo o raziskovanju paleolitika, neolitika in eneolitika v Sloveniji 23:39–48.Google Scholar
Radovanović, I, Voytek, B. 1997. Hunters, fishers and farmers: sedentism, subsistence and social complexity in the Djerdap Mesolithic. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 29:19–31.Google Scholar
Roksandić, M. 1999. Transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic in the Iron Gates Gorge: Physical Anthropology Perspective [PhD dissertation]. Burnaby, Canada: Simon Fraser University.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1969. The roots of the Lepenski Vir culture. Archaeologia Iugoslavica 10:13–21.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1972. Europe's First Monumental Sculpture. New Discoveries at Lepenski Vir. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Whittle, A, Bartosiewicz, L, Borić, D, Pettitt, P, Richards, M. 2002. In the beginning: new radiocarbon dates for the Early Neolithic in northern Serbia and southeast Hungary. Antaeus 25:64–117.Google Scholar
Zoffmann, Z. 1983. Prehistorical skeletal remains from Lepenski Vir (Iron Gate, Yugoslavia). Homo 34:129–48.Google Scholar