Isotopes prove advanced, integral crop production, and stockbreeding strategies nourished Trypillia mega-populations

Schlütz, F. and Hofmann, R. and dal Corsoa, M. and Pashkevych, G. and Dreibrod, S. and Shatilo, M. and Terna, A. and Fuchs, K. and Videiko, Mykhailo and Rud, V. and Müller, J. and Kirleis, W. (2023) Isotopes prove advanced, integral crop production, and stockbreeding strategies nourished Trypillia mega-populations PNAS, 120 (52). pp. 1-10. ISSN 0027-8424

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Abstract

After 500 y of colonizing the forest-steppe area northwest of the Black Sea, on the territories of what is today Moldova and Ukraine, Trypillia societies founded large, aggregated settlements from ca. 4150 BCE and mega-sites (>100 ha) from ca. 3950 BCE. Covering up to 320 ha and housing up to 15,000 inhabitants, the latter were the world’s largest settlements to date. Some 480 δ 13C and δ 15N measurements on bones of humans, animals, and charred crops allow the detection of spatio-temporal patterns and the calculation of complete agricultural Bayesian food webs for Trypillia societies. The isotope data come from settlements of the entire Trypillia area between the Prut and the Dnieper rivers. The datasets cover the development of the Trypillia societies from the early phase (4800–4200/4100 BCE), over the agglomeration of mega-sites (4200/4100–3650 BCE), to the dispersal phase (3650–3000 BCE). High δ 15N values mostly come from the mega-sites. Our analyses show that the subsistence of Trypillia mega-sites depended on pulses cultivated on strongly manured (dung-)soils and on cattle that were kept fenced on intensive pasture s to easy collect the manure for pulse cultivation. The food web models indicate a low proportion of meat in human diet (approximately 10%). The largely crop-based diet, consisting of cereals plus up to 46% pulses, was balanced in calories and indispensable amino acids. The flourishing of Europe’s first mega-populations depended on an advanced, integral mega-economy that included sophisticated dung management.Their demise was therefore not economically, but socially, conditioned [Hofmann et al., PLoS One. 14, e0222243 (2019)].

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2312962120
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Chalcolithic; Trypillia economy; paleodiet; manure production; legumes
Subjects:	Це архівна тематика Київського університету імені Бориса Грінченка > Статті у наукометричних базах > Scopus Це архівна тематика Київського університету імені Бориса Грінченка > Статті у наукометричних базах > Web of Science
Divisions:	Це архівні підрозділи Київського університету імені Бориса Грінченка > Факультет суспільно-гуманітарних наук > Кафедра історії України
Depositing User:	д.і.н. Михайло Юрієвич Відейко
Date Deposited:	21 Dec 2023 09:01
Last Modified:	31 Jul 2024 08:38
URI:	https://elibrary.kubg.edu.ua/id/eprint/48022

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