Unravelling the resilience of the KGK VI population from the Gumelnița site (Romania) through stable isotopes

Abstract

The Gumelnița site belongs to the Kodjadermen-Gumelnița-Karanovo VI (KGK VI) communities (c. 4700–3900 cal BC) and comprises the tell-type settlement and its corresponding cemetery. This paper reconstructs the diet and lifeways of the Chalcolithic people in the northeastern Balkans using archaeological remains found at the Gumelnița site (Romania). A multi-bioarchaeological investigation (archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, anthropology) was conducted on vegetal, animal, and human remains, alongside radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analyses (δ13C, δ15N) of humans (n = 33), mammals (n = 38), reptiles (n = 3), fishes (n = 8), freshwater mussels shells (n = 18), and plants (n = 24). According to the results of δ13C and δ15N values and FRUITS, the inhabitants of Gumelnița had a diet based on crops and using natural resources, such as fish, freshwater molluscs and game. Although domestic fauna was occasionally exploited for meat, it had a role in providing secondary products. Crops were heavily manured, and chaff and other crop waste may have been necessary fodder for cattle and sheep. Dogs and pigs fed on human waste, although the diet of the latter is more similar to that of wild boars. Foxes had a diet close to dogs, which may indicate synanthropic behaviour. Radiocarbon dates were calibrated with the percentage of freshwater resources obtained by FRUITS. As a result, the corrected dates for the freshwater reservoir effect (FRE) have a delay of an average of 147 years. According to our data, this agrarian community developed a subsistence strategy under the pressure of some climatic changes that started after 4300 cal BC, corresponding to KGK VI rapid collapse/decline episode tracked recently (that begins around 4350 cal BC). This matching of our data in the two models (climatic and chrono-demographic) allowed us to capture the economic strategies that led to the resilience of those people more than other contemporary KGK VI communities.

Dietary 14 C reservoir effects and the chronology of prehistoric burials at Sakhtysh, central European Russia

“…Ideally, freshwater DREs can be estimated by scaling 14 C offsets in paired samples of human remains and contemporaneous terrestrial materials, such as bone grave goods, to human dietary stable isotope values, and obtaining regression equations that predict DREs in unpaired individuals, based on their stable isotope values (20,36,37). The diet-reconstruction approach to freshwater DRE correction has been used when paired terrestrial samples are not available, but applicable FRE and food-source stable isotope values are understood (15,38,39). We could not apply either approach at Sakhtysh because additional bone grave goods were not accessible and the FRE in local fish was unknown.…”