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The archaeological Bronze Age record in Europe reveals unprecedented changes in subsistence strategies due to innovative farming techniques and new crop cultivation. Increasing cultural exchanges affected the economic system. The inhabitants of Switzerland played a pivotal role in this European context through relationships with the Mediterranean, the High and Middle Danube regions and the Alps thanks to the area’s central position. This research aims to reconstruct, for the first time in Switzerland, human socio-economic systems through the study of human diet, herding and farming practices and their changes throughout the Bronze Age (2200–800 BCE) by means of biochemical markers. The study includes 41 human, 22 terrestrial and aquatic animal specimens and 30 charred seeds and chaff samples from sites in western Switzerland. Stable isotope analyses were performed on cereal and legume seeds (δ13C, δ15N), animal bone collagen (δ13Ccoll, δ15N, δ34S), human bone and tooth dentine collagen (δ13Ccoll, δ15N,) and human tooth enamel (δ13Cenamel). The isotopic data suggest a) an intensification of soil fertilization and no hydric stress throughout the Bronze Age, b) a human diet mainly composed of terrestrial resources despite the proximity of Lake Geneva and the Rhone river, c) a diet based on C3 plants during the Early and Middle Bronze Age as opposed to the significant consumption of 13C-enriched resources (probably millet) by individuals from the Final Bronze Age, d) no important changes in dietary patterns throughout an individual’s lifespan but a more varied diet in childhood compared to adulthood, e) no differences in diet according to biological criteria (age, sex) or funerary behavior (burial architecture, grave goods).

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The Pre-Kerma is an Upper Nubian culture that developed between 3500 and 2500 bce. It preceded the Kerma civilization and was in part contemporaneous with the A-Group from Lower Nubia. It consisted of an agro-pastoral population that maintained contacts with Lower Nubia and produced pottery somewhat similar to that of the A-Group. It is best known from settlements dated between 3000 and 2600 bce, in particular those from Kerma and Sai Island. The settlement sites have yielded a large number of cereal storage pits, which imply that agriculture was practiced on a larger scale than during the preceding periods. At Kerma, an extensive agglomeration of more than fifty huts, animal pens, and an imposing system of fortifications suggests the social complexity of the urban Kerma civilization. The Pre-Kerma culture maintained contacts with the A-Group, while being much less involved in exchanges with the earliest Egyptian dynasties. Its existence bears witness to a certain social dynamism in Upper Nubia that helped give rise to the Kerma kingdom.