Further insight into Neolithic agricultural management at Kouphovouno, southern Greece: expanding the isotopic approach

Abstract

This paper investigates agricultural management choices of farmers at the Neolithic site of Kouphvouno, southern Greece. Previous stable isotopic analysis of charred plant remains and bone animal collagen showed that throughout the Neolithic occupation of this site, farmers employed species-specific strategies to cultivate crops and herd domestic animals. Additional analyses of charred plant remains carried out in this study (including einkorn, a cereal species not measured before) expand our understanding of the diversity and flexibility of early crop cultivation on a local scale. Furthermore, sequential tooth enamel carbonate isotopic analyses are used to assess the seasonal dietary and grazing patterns of domestic sheep and goat, providing a more nuanced picture of the roles of these animals in the subsistence economy of this community. The results show that the species-specific cultivation system was dictated by the crops' ecological adaptations.Based on a small number of individuals available for analysis, the findings suggest that animal management was also likely driven by cultural choices, and involved foddering of goats managed for milk and local grazing of sheep managed for meat.

Cattle management in an Iron Age/Roman settlement in the Netherlands: Archaeozoological and stable isotope analysis

“…While a reduced amplitude of intra-tooth variation in cattle compared to sheep seems to be typical and may be related to the longer duration of mineralization in cattle [68], some cattle do show significantly higher amplitudes (e.g. our non-local animals, but also cattle from Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in the Netherlands, Greece and Romania [50,[68][69][70][71]). Most δ 13 C values fall within the expected range of -13.2 to -11.3‰.…”

“…and the lowest in the winter [32,69,[72][73][74][75][76][77]. The amplitude of the δ 18 O curves in the cattle teeth from Houten-Castellum is relatively low.…”

Exploring Diversity in Neolithic Agropastoral Management in Mainland Greece Using Stable Isotope Analysis

“…The relatively high incidence of free-threshing wheat at Kouphovouno presents a striking contrast to the situation in northern Greece, where farmers are argued to have rejected this crop by choice (Valamoti and Jones 2003). The results of isotopic analyses of faunal and botanical material from Kouphovouno have been published elsewhere (Vaiglova et al 2014a(Vaiglova et al , 2020 and indicate that farmers managed individual crops at varying levels of intensity -defined as investment of labor and resources per unit area (cf. Halstead 2000).…”

“…Instead, our interpretations are based on 1) comparisons of δ 15 N values of different crop species, 2) variability in δ 15 N values of individual species, and 3) comparisons of contemporary crop and faunal data. Large relative differences (> 2 ‰) between mean δ 15 N values of different crop species (such as the 4 ‰ difference between free-threshing wheat and hulled barley at Kouphovouno; Vaiglova et al 2014aVaiglova et al , 2020 or equally large within-species variability is considered meaningful because it is beyond any measure of natural variability reported in modern experiments or traditional farming settings (Bogaard et al 2007;Fraser et al 2011;Styring et al 2016b). The interpretations are thus aimed at assessing not whether the plant δ 15 N values were elevated compared to the local baseline, but whether different crop species were cultivated in different soils and how the crop δ 15 N values compared to those of herbivore forage.…”

“…The aim of this study is to explore variability in how early farmers managed agropastoral production in Neolithic mainland Greece by comparing the isotope ecology of crops and livestock in three distinct environmental and cultural settings. We use stable isotopic measurements to assess crop growing conditions and livestock diets at three sites, selected on the basis of systematic recovery of bioarchaeological remains, resulting in extensive plant and faunal assemblages: 1) Early to Late Neolithic Halai, central Greece (previously unpublished); 2) Late Neolithic Makriyalos, northern Greece (new and published data;Triantaphyllou 2001;Vaiglova et al 2018); and 3) Middle to Late Neolithic Kouphovouno, southern Greece (Vaiglova et al 2014a(Vaiglova et al , 2020 (Figure 1, Table 1). These are the first Greek Neolithic sites where plant, faunal, and (at Halai and Makriyalos) human stable isotopic analyses have been combined.…”