An international team of archaeologists and scientists reconstructed prehistoric diets in north-central Poland using cutting-edge methods, unveiling previously veiled aspects of their society.
The Corded Ware community arrived in north-central Poland around 2800 BCE. As a metaphorically suburban community living outside the cultural center of Central Europe, they developed their own culture, a press release explains.
Their diet, interestingly enough, revealed that.
A team of researchers behind a new study published in Royal Society Open Science sampled human remains from 60 individuals from different prehistoric communities in north-central Poland, now equipped with advanced technology, which inhibited the progression of this specific niche: central Europe between the Neolithic and Bronze Age.
Researchers opened up a door, more so than a window, into the daily lives and activities of these early communities, demonstrating how they sourced and distributed their food, which pointed to social inequalities, and showed just how creative humans were in their ability to adapt to their surroundings.
Same same but different because of food
As per Discover Magazine, traditional archaeology has failed to capture daily life during a significant transitional period in human history: 4100 and 1230 BCE.
Central Europe, over this span of 3,000 years, experienced important changes: the migration of the steppe from the East and the widespread use of millet. This region of Poland, however, told a different story, which archaeologists couldn’t access because of limited technology.
Combining archaeology and anthropology, this interdisciplinary study employed radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA analysis, and stable isotope nitrogen and carbon measurements to crack open diets and farming practices, bringing the Corded Ware community into the spotlight.
The rise of local culture
Isotopic evidence showed that the earliest Corded Ware people herded their animals in forests and wet river valleys, as opposed to grasslands, so they occupied “marginal zones away from the fertile soils long cultivated by local farmers,” a press release explains.
Over several centuries, their diet began resembling that of their farming neighbors, suggesting shared herding practices or the development of local culture. This area of Poland became a hotbed for diversity and adaptation, according to Discover Magazine.
Aside from this stunning and unexpected deviation from the expected, the second major discovery concerned millet, as it was rapidly adopted and quickly became a dietary staple across Eurasia. But not in north-central Poland.
The isotopic analysis, in particular, began to reveal to archaeologists that this region in Central Europe deviated from the dominant narrative. From 1200 BCE, some communities relied on millet, but others didn’t touch it at all.
Interestingly enough, these groups held different burial practices along with diets. They turned back to older traditions or implemented new ideas, such as unusual elongated pits with the dead placed foot-to-foot, as per the press release. So the differences in food choices were tied closely to identity and group boundaries.
The nitrogen isotope composition of bone collagen reflected that some individuals had more access to animal protein than others, a pattern supported by the burials, which contained modest grave goods, tied to social status.
The adage, “you are what you eat,” might be too simplistic a statement. It was the key to understanding a prehistoric society that developed independently of the rest of Central Europe, needing to adapt and shift according to where they lived, a press release concluded.