Corded Ware Culture Plant Gathering at the Narva-Jõesuu IIB Settlement and Burial Site in Estonia

Vanhanen, Santeri; Крийска, Айвар; Nordqvist, Kerkko

doi:10.1080/14614103.2023.2216531

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…In contrast to the northwest Baltic [ 72 ], the scarce macrobotanical and pollen data show an absence of considerable crop cultivation in the northeast Baltic during the 3rd millennium cal BCE. Plant consumption here was rather tuned towards wild species [ 16 , 73 ], although tentative experimenting with crop cultivation cannot be entirely excluded [ 74 ]. The oldest directly dated cereal grains in the northeast Baltic are from the 2nd millennium cal BCE [ 39 , 72 , 75 , 76 ], while crop cultivation at that time is also supported by continuous Cerealia pollen records [ 77 , 78 ] and the establishment of the first field systems [ 21 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parallel worlds and mixed economies: multi-proxy analysis reveals complex subsistence systems at the dawn of early farming in the northeast Baltic

Oras,

Tõrv,

Johanson

et al. 2023

R. Soc. open sci.

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The transition from foraging to farming was a key turning point in ancient socio-economies. Yet, the complexities and regional variations of this transformation are still poorly understood. This multi-proxy study provides a new understanding of the introduction and spread of early farming, challenging the notions of hierarchical economies. The most extensive biological and biomolecular dietary overview, combining zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical, dietary stable isotope and pottery lipid residue analyses is presented, to unravel the nature and extent of early farming in the 3rd millennium cal BCE in the northeast Baltic. Farming was introduced by incoming Corded Ware cultural groups (CWC), but some dietary segregation existed within these communities, with some having more access to domesticates, others incorporating more wild resources into their diet. The CWC groups coexisted in parallel with local hunter–fisher–gatherers (HFG) without any indication of the adoption of domesticates. There was no transition from foraging to farming in the 3rd millennium cal BCE in the NE Baltic. Instead, we see a complex system of parallel worlds with local HFGs continuing forager lifeways, and incoming farmers practising mixed economies, with the continuation of these subsistence strategies for at least a millennium after the first encounter with domesticated animals.

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