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. 2013 Jul 30;110(31):12589-94.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1305918110. Epub 2013 Jul 15.

Crop manuring and intensive land management by Europe's first farmers

Amy Bogaard  1 , Rebecca Fraser, Tim H E Heaton, Michael Wallace, Petra Vaiglova, Michael Charles, Glynis Jones, Richard P Evershed, Amy K Styring, Niels H Andersen, Rose-Marie Arbogast, László Bartosiewicz, Armelle Gardeisen, Marie Kanstrup, Ursula Maier, Elena Marinova, Lazar Ninov, Marguerita Schäfer, Elisabeth Stephan
Affiliations

Crop manuring and intensive land management by Europe's first farmers

Amy Bogaard et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

The spread of farming from western Asia to Europe had profound long-term social and ecological impacts, but identification of the specific nature of Neolithic land management practices and the dietary contribution of early crops has been problematic. Here, we present previously undescribed stable isotope determinations of charred cereals and pulses from 13 Neolithic sites across Europe (dating ca. 5900-2400 cal B.C.), which show that early farmers used livestock manure and water management to enhance crop yields. Intensive manuring inextricably linked plant cultivation and animal herding and contributed to the remarkable resilience of these combined practices across diverse climatic zones. Critically, our findings suggest that commonly applied paleodietary interpretations of human and herbivore δ(15)N values have systematically underestimated the contribution of crop-derived protein to early farmer diets.

Keywords: agriculture; husbandry; paleodiet; prehistoric.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Ranges of δ15N values in modern bulk cereal samples (wheats and barleys) grown under different rates of manuring at long-term agricultural experiments: Rothamsted, United Kingdom, Askov, Denmark, and Bad Lauchstädt, Germany (13). Dashed horizontal lines represent thresholds of low (i.e., residual from previous land use history only), medium, and high manuring rates.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Map showing the archaeological sites.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Neolithic hulled barley grain from Koufovouno.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
∆13C and δ15N values of cereal and pulse samples at four Neolithic sites: (A) Koufovouno, Greece; (B) Slatina, Bulgaria; (C) Hornstaad, Germany; (D) Sarup, Denmark. Solid horizontal line represents estimate of large herbivore forage δ15N value (by subtracting 4‰ from the mean value for herbivore bone collagen to account for trophic shift). Dashed horizontal lines represent thresholds of low, medium, and high manuring rates inferred from modern experiments. Red vertical line represents well-watered wheat and pulse threshold; dark blue line represents well-watered barley threshold.
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