Dietary inferences through stable isotope analysis at the Neolithic and Bronze Age in the southern Caucasus (sixth to first millenium BC, Azerbaijan): From environmental adaptation to social impacts

Genome-wide analysis of a collective grave from Mentesh Tepe provides insight into the population structure of early neolithic population in the South Caucasus

Despite the localisation of the southern Caucasus at the outskirt of the Fertile Crescent, the Neolithisation process started there only at the beginning of the sixth millennium with the Shomutepe-Shulaveri culture of yet unclear origins. We present here genomic data for three new individuals from Mentesh Tepe in Azerbaijan, dating back to the beginnings of the Shomutepe-Shulaveri culture. We evidence that two juveniles, buried embracing each other, were brothers. We show that the Mentesh Tepe Neolithic population is the product of a recent gene flow between the Anatolian farmer-related population and the Caucasus/Iranian population, demonstrating that population admixture was at the core of the development of agriculture in the South Caucasus. By comparing Bronze Age individuals from the South Caucasus with Neolithic individuals from the same region, including Mentesh Tepe, we evidence that gene flows between Pontic Steppe populations and Mentesh Tepe-related groups contributed to the makeup of the Late Bronze Age and modern Caucasian populations. Our results show that the high cultural diversity during the Neolithic period of the South Caucasus deserves close genetic analysis.

Diverse dietary practices across the Early Bronze Age 'Kura-Araxes culture' in the South Caucasus

The Kura-Araxes (KA) cultural phenomenon (dated to the Early Bronze Age, c. 3500/3350-2500 BCE) is primarily characterised by the emergence of a homogeneous pottery style and a uniform 'material culture package' in settlements across the South Caucasus, as well as territories extending to the Ancient Near East and the Levant. It has been argued that KA societies practised pastoralism, despite a lack of direct examination of dietary and culinary practices in this region. Here, we report the first analyses of absorbed lipid residues from KA pottery to both determine the organic products produced and consumed and to reconstruct subsistence practices. Our results provide compelling evidence for a diversified diet across KA settlements in Armenia, comprising a mixed economy of meat and plant processing, aquatic fats and dairying. The preservation of diagnostic plant lipid biomarkers, notably long-chain fatty acids (C20 to C28) and n-alkanes (C23 to C33) has enabled the identification of the earliest processing of plants in pottery of the region. These findings suggest that KA settlements were agropastoral exploiting local resources. Results demonstrate the significance of applying biomolecular methods for examining dietary inferences in the South Caucasus region.

A multi-proxy bioarchaeological approach reveals new trends in Bronze Age diet in Italy

This study investigates changes in dietary practices and subsistence strategies in Bronze Age Italy integrating isotopic analyses with archaeobotanical and archaeozoological data. By investigating food habits, we contribute to reconstructing human lifestyles and highlighting possible links with the economic/social organization when the rise of stratified societies and new economic activities affected subsistence practices. Stable isotopes analyses in humans and animals were performed on 6 Italian sites dating from 2300 to 900 cal. BC, followed by a complete review of additional 19 sites, which forms the basis of a diachronic and geographic comparison for Bronze Age Italy. The geographic analysis shows a more varied diet in northern and central Italy, compared to the south. The diachronic analysis highlights the homogeneity of food habits during the Early Bronze Age, contrary to the later phases when an increase in dietary variability and a higher animal protein consumption are revealed. The Middle Bronze Age appears as a pivotal moment in protohistoric societies, a phase of transition. The consumption of different foodstuffs highlights the importance of cultural exchanges, resulting in a sort of "food globalization", although environmental and climatic fluctuations could also have affected dietary patterns, favoring some crops over others.

Emergence and intensification of dairying in the Caucasus and Eurasian steppes

Archaeological and archaeogenetic evidence points to the Pontic–Caspian steppe zone between the Caucasus and the Black Sea as the crucible from which the earliest steppe pastoralist societies arose and spread, ultimately influencing populations from Europe to Inner Asia. However, little is known about their economic foundations and the factors that may have contributed to their extensive mobility. Here, we investigate dietary proteins within the dental calculus proteomes of 45 individuals spanning the Neolithic to Greco-Roman periods in the Pontic–Caspian Steppe and neighbouring South Caucasus, Oka–Volga–Don and East Urals regions. We find that sheep dairying accompanies the earliest forms of Eneolithic pastoralism in the North Caucasus. During the fourth millennium bc, Maykop and early Yamnaya populations also focused dairying exclusively on sheep while reserving cattle for traction and other purposes. We observe a breakdown in livestock specialization and an economic diversification of dairy herds coinciding with aridification during the subsequent late Yamnaya and North Caucasus Culture phases, followed by severe climate deterioration during the Catacomb and Lola periods. The need for additional pastures to support these herds may have driven the heightened mobility of the Middle and Late Bronze Age periods. Following a hiatus of more than 500 years, the North Caucasian steppe was repopulated by Early Iron Age societies with a broad mobile dairy economy, including a new focus on horse milking.

Milk proteins from the North Caucasus and Eurasian steppe support the initial development of sheep dairying during the Eneolithic, followed by subsequent intensification and husbandry of different dairy animals during the Middle Bronze Age and later periods.

The place of millet in food globalization during Late Prehistory as evidenced by new bioarchaeological data from the Caucasus

Two millets, Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica, were domesticated in northern China, around 6000 BC. Although its oldest evidence is in Asia, possible independent domestication of these species in the Caucasus has often been proposed. To verify this hypothesis, a multiproxy research program (Orimil) was designed to detect the first evidence of millet in this region. It included a critical review of the occurrence of archaeological millet in the Caucasus, up to Antiquity; isotopic analyses of human and animal bones and charred grains; and radiocarbon dating of millet grains from archaeological contexts dated from the Early Bronze Age (3500–2500 BC) to the 1^st Century BC. The results show that these two cereals were cultivated during the Middle Bronze Age (MBA), around 2000–1800 BC, especially Setaria italica which is the most ancient millet found in Georgia. Isotopic analyses also show a significant enrichment in ¹³C in human and animal tissues, indicating an increasing C₄ plants consumption at the same period. More broadly, our results assert that millet was not present in the Caucasus in the Neolithic period. Its arrival in the region, based on existing data in Eurasia, was from the south, without excluding a possible local domestication of Setaria italica.

New AMS 14C dates track the arrival and spread of broomcorn millet cultivation and agricultural change in prehistoric Europe

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is not one of the founder crops domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but was domesticated in northeast China by 6000 BC. In Europe, millet was reported in Early Neolithic contexts formed by 6000 BC, but recent radiocarbon dating of a dozen 'early' grains cast doubt on these claims. Archaeobotanical evidence reveals that millet was common in Europe from the 2nd millennium BC, when major societal and economic transformations took place in the Bronze Age. We conducted an extensive programme of AMS-dating of charred broomcorn millet grains from 75 prehistoric sites in Europe. Our Bayesian model reveals that millet cultivation began in Europe at the earliest during the sixteenth century BC, and spread rapidly during the fifteenth/fourteenth centuries BC. Broomcorn millet succeeds in exceptionally wide range of growing conditions and completes its lifecycle in less than three summer months. Offering an additional harvest and thus surplus food/fodder, it likely was a transformative innovation in European prehistoric agriculture previously based mainly on (winter) cropping of wheat and barley. We provide a new, high-resolution chronological framework for this key agricultural development that likely contributed to far-reaching changes in lifestyle in late 2nd millennium BC Europe.