Sophisticated Animal Husbandry in Sweden 4000 BC

Angela

Elite member
Messages
21,823
Reaction score
12,325
Points
113
Ethnic group
Italian
This is the link to the article:

http://www.archaeology.org/news/3613-150817-neolithic-scandinavian-farmers-were-sophisticated

"ALMHOV, SWEDEN—Researchers studying cow teeth from southern Sweden dating to around 4000 B.C. have found evidence that early farmers there knew more about livestock husbandry than previously thought. By analyzing the oxygen isotopes in the teeth, the team found that cows were born over the course of a year, not just one season, indicating that the Neolithic farmers could control when calves were born. “It’s very interesting that the farmers of the period were able to manipulate the calving seasons, so all the calves did not come in the spring,” Durham University's Kurt Gron told ScienceNordic. “This is very hard to do, and would not have taken place if the farmers had not intended to do it.” By controlling the calving season, the farmers had access to milk year round, which suggests to some archaeologists that the farmers were so sophisticated that they were probably immigrants from central Europe where such livestock practices were already established. To read about the technology used by people around this time in Europe, go to "Neolithic Toolkit."

I actually didn't know that there was this much control over calving this early.

To the best of my recollection, the EEF farmers of central Europe didn't carry the alleles for lactase tolerance. Is that correct? Were the Gok samples tested? I vaguely recall that it did show up in Iberia pretty early, but I'm not sure of the date.

If they didn't carry these derived alleles but could milk the cows all year long I suppose they must have been making some sort of low lactase cheese?

If
 
Do they suspect artificial insemination?
 
where did this technology come from?
the 4000 BC Swedish farmers were newcomers
I'd guess the technology comes from NW Anatolia
and there was more, probably also draught animals (oxens) and the development of the plough, as in Cucuteni and probably also Vinca
 
Last edited by a moderator:
the video about the neolithic toolkit is interesting and quite impressive

thanks
 
Do they suspect artificial insemination?

I don't think anything like that was possible until very recently. It must have involved controlling the access of the bull to the cows at certain fixed times, and thereby managing the herd so that certain cows were calving and lactating while others were gestating.

What it also indicates to me is not only that they wanted access to the milk products year round, but that they had figured out some way to produce enough grain or store enough fodder of whatever kind that they were able to feed the gestating cows enough during the winter months so that the growing calf could get the proper nutrients.

After all, even today, some small farmers still breed the cows in the spring because then the cows can get good pasture all spring and summer to nourish the calf during the eight or nine month gestation period. As with humans, there will only be a successful pregnancy if the nutrient level is high. The calves nurse for maybe another eight months? That's when you would be getting a portion of her milk, or all of it if you butcher the calf. Only then can you breed the cow again, or all the milk would dry up.

The period when the cows are pregnant there's no milk. So they were rather skillfully managing the access to the bulls, choosing which cows to breed when, culling the herd judiciously, and also managing their farming to produce enough surplus for themselves and their animals over the winter months. Also, of course, from implements that have been found, they knew how to make cheese from the milk that was produced.

It makes sense from what I know of how small farms manage these things even today. It's just that I don't think researchers thought this was already standard practice 6,000 years ago.

But then, we didn't know, as can be seen in the accompanying video, that people could do rather sophisticated carpentry with Neolithic technology. That work isn't very different from what farmers do today when they build a fence or enclosure, for example.
 
this video is in Dutch, so you won't make to much of it http://www.schooltv.nl/video/dekzandgebieden-nuttige-schapen-voor-de-landbouw/
it tells about the soil & landscapes of Drenthe, central-north Netherlands
the soil formed after the last ice age was sandy, not the fertile loess LBK farmers needed
farming started with cattle, sheep and goats on the heath and small well-chosen patches of land for agriculture
the farmers collected menure of sheep and mixed it with sods from the heath to maintain and make the small patches a bit larger
they planted hedges and builded dikes around the patches to keep the grazing animals out
during night time all animals were collected and kept in a central pasture inside the village
IMO it was a different kind of farmer that arrived here, not LBK farmers, alltough some may have mixed with them
 
this video is in Dutch, so you won't make to much of it http://www.schooltv.nl/video/dekzandgebieden-nuttige-schapen-voor-de-landbouw/
it tells about the soil & landscapes of Drenthe, central-north Netherlands
the soil formed after the last ice age was sandy, not the fertile loess LBK farmers needed
farming started with cattle, sheep and goats on the heath and small well-chosen patches of land for agriculture
the farmers collected menure of sheep and mixed it with sods from the heath to maintain and make the small patches a bit larger
they planted hedges and builded dikes around the patches to keep the grazing animals out
during night time all animals were collected and kept in a central pasture inside the village
IMO it was a different kind of farmer that arrived here, not LBK farmers, alltough some may have mixed with them


You may be right. Still, according to the researchers, the techniques were also in use in the Central European Neolithic. Where it ultimately originated, I don't know. As you hinted above, perhaps north west Anatolia? I wonder if that technology was brought by the new groups carrying some J2 and a minority of E-V13? Does anyone know if the change in technology lines up with the dates for those new cultures? (Sopot etc.?)
 
The period when the cows are pregnant there's no milk. So they were rather skillfully managing the access to the bulls, choosing which cows to breed when, culling the herd judiciously, and also managing their farming to produce enough surplus for themselves and their animals over the winter months. Also, of course, from implements that have been found, they knew how to make cheese from the milk that was produced.
I see your point, it make sense. It occurred to me that what researchers call "farmer's control" my have happened naturally. In nature the wild cows ovulated only at certain time of the year to have offspring in a spring. The mutants who ovulated in wrong season usually lost their offspring to hunger. However when farmers took care of them the mutants, the odd ovulating ones, survived and their offspring too, giving start to whole herd of odd ovulating ones, or ovulating whole year. In this case no control is needed. If bull is around they will have offspring any time of the year. Farmers just need to help feeding them. Later farmers took some control of it for sure, but not at the beginning.
When cows ovulate only in one month of the year, you can't force them to have intercourse with a bull in other months. Nothing is going to happen, no offspring, rendering "the control" useless. Only when you already have herd full of these mutants, the control will matter. This article cites a situation at 4,000 BC, 2-4k years after domestication of cows. Quite a long time for many mutations to take hold. It is possible then that they already had many odd ovulating mutants and strict control over them.
 
You may be right. Still, according to the researchers, the techniques were also in use in the Central European Neolithic. Where it ultimately originated, I don't know. As you hinted above, perhaps north west Anatolia? I wonder if that technology was brought by the new groups carrying some J2 and a minority of E-V13? Does anyone know if the change in technology lines up with the dates for those new cultures? (Sopot etc.?)

first herders from Anatolia probably arrived in Africa 6-6500 BC
they were R1b-V88 and T and I think came from central/Eastern Anatolia
first herding farmers in Europe were Hamangian - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamangia_culture - along the western shores of the Balck Sea 5250 BC
no DNA of Hamangian is known, they were one (of many) forebears of Cucuteni culture
some of these herding farmers may have mixed with Balkan neolithic and LBK
we know early Starcevo/Köros farmers were G2a, F and even some H2, and some EHG I mixed with them (KO1 from Gamba 2014 was I2a and autosomal EHG, no EEF)
this was also the main component of LBK, but we also have C1a2-V20 (Gamba 2014 NE5 & NE6) in Hungary and T1a (Haak 2015 KAR6) in Germany
what was their origin? Balkan neolithic or herding farmers?
the interaction between Balkan neolithic/LBK and incoming farmers probably created Sopot/Lyengel/Rösen/TRB cultures
I also think it was easier for EHG I groups to integrate into the herding farmers society than into LBK
This is what we have uptill now :

SopotAlsónyék-elkerülő, HungaryALE145000-4910 BCJ2J, J2+

Szécsényi-Nagy 2015
SopotAlsónyék-elkerülő, HungaryALE15I2a1I, I2, I2a1+

Szécsényi-Nagy 2015
SopotAlsónyék-elkerülő, HungaryALE16CCT, C-M130+xF, K, E, G, R, Q
Szécsényi-Nagy 2015
LengyelHungaryApc-Berekalja I. [NE7]M4490-4360 BCI2a I2a1a2a1-L1287 xL233Genetiker 18+ 22- op 82 Felix 27/10/14 I2a2a2a-L1228N1a1a1aGamba 2014

Hungary Polgar Ferenci hat (PF811)
6,3-6,1 kaN1a1a2Felix


LengyalHungaryVEJ2
4490-4379 BCCCT, C-M130+xF, K, E, G, R, Q
Szécsényi-Nagy 2015
LengyalHungaryVEJ4
4780-4700 BCE1b1b1a1E1b1b1a1-M78+, E1b1b1, E+

Szécsényi-Nagy 2015
Balaton-LasinjaHungaryVEJ9
4330-4260 BCCCT, C-M130+xF, K, E, G, R, Q
Szécsényi-Nagy 2015










BaalbergeGermanyEsperstedt [ESP 30]M3887-3797 BCF*P316+negative for haplogroups haplogroups G, H1a2a, H1b1, H1b2a, H3a1, H3a2, I1a3, I2a1b, J1a2b3a, J2a1h2, J2b2a1a1, L, NO and P1H1e1aBrotherton 2013; Brandt 2013; Haak 2015
BaalbergeGermanyQuedlinburg IX [QLB 15 / I0559]M3645-3537R1 (xR1b1a2, R1a1a)P224+, PF6069+, M515-, L151-, L753 This may represent ancient DNA damage, so the assignment should be viewed with caution.HV6’17Brandt 2013; Haak 2015, Additional info on Y-DNA from Vince Tilroe










Salzmünde/
Bernburg [regional TRB]
GermanyEsperstedt [ESP 24]M3360-3086 BCI2a1b1aL1498+, L161.1+, CTS1293+,
CTS1802+,
L178+, CTS8239+, M423+, CTS11030+

T2bBrandt 2013; Haak 2015
Gökhem Västergötland [regional TRB]SwedenGok4M4-5 kaI2a1b1 L161.1 xS2639Genetiker 1+ 0 – op 35 onzeker



I, C1a2-V20, F, J2, E-M78, R1
G2a is absent but it should be there ; LBK was mainly G2a, LBK land was overpopulated and there were tribal wars among LBK ; I'm sure there were LBK fugitives who tried to integrate into Lyengel/Rösen/TRB cultures

I don't think E-V13 was born yet, TRMCA is estimated only 4400 year
maybe some bronze age expansion
sounds unbelievable, but the same can be said about I1
 
It will be very interesting if we can get some yDna from Hamangia. Some researchers claim an Anatolian link, although there's some dispute about that. It does appear that there was some change in mtDna in Central Europe from the early to the mid Neolithic. We saw that in the earlier Haak papers on mtDna. Perhaps there was movement from the west but perhaps there was also new gene flow from the Near East whether or not it was specifically through Hamangia. Hopefully, we'll know more soon.

I don't know, however, whether "dairying" as such arrived later in the Neolithic or whether it was present even during the LBK. As I'm sure you know there is a lot of disagreement as to whether or not there really was a "Secondary Products Revolution". Also, while there is some evidence of intensive "cattle" dairying around the Sea of Marmara at a date after the earliest Neolithic, "dairying" of sheep and goats could have been going on much earlier, and the presence of more intensive cattle dairying around that area might just be a function of favorable environmental conditions for it in that specific location.

Anyway, it seems there's really recent research on the topic. See:
http://www.haw.uni-heidelberg.de/md/haw/veranstaltungen/programm_food_culture2015.pdf

This presentation looks particularly on point:
"Ancient Lipid Residues Provide Evidence for the Use of Dairy Products since Early Neolithic Phases in Croatia."

I would have liked to have attended a lot of these lectures. I hope they upload the actual papers to researchgate or academic.edu.
 
I think we should be cautious about drawing such broad conclusions from one site, particularly a site where there was a pre-existing population of sedentary and seemingly successful fisher gatherers, like the one at the Gates.

See: http://www.academia.edu/4124374/Ani...y_Neolithic_of_the_Balkans_and_Central_Europe

"Animal Exploitation in the Early Neolithic of the Balkans and Central Europe"

"Previous work (Conolly et al. 2011) has shown the varying regional trajectories by which animal bone assemblages in southwest Asia came to be domi-nated by domestic animals in the Aceramic Neo-lithic. This research showed that the earliest Neo-lithic sites in Greece and Bulgaria are different from other regions in that they are dominated from the outset by high proportions of domestic animals."

The authors go on to opine that the differences might in part have had to do with microclimate considerations.

See also:
http://www.academia.edu/5289850/Dom..._Europe_and_long-term_ecological_consequences

https://books.google.com/books?id=Z...ithic of Greece have domestic animals&f=false
 
It will be very interesting if we can get some yDna from Hamangia. Some researchers claim an Anatolian link, although there's some dispute about that. It does appear that there was some change in mtDna in Central Europe from the early to the mid Neolithic. We saw that in the earlier Haak papers on mtDna. Perhaps there was movement from the west but perhaps there was also new gene flow from the Near East whether or not it was specifically through Hamangia. Hopefully, we'll know more soon.

I don't know, however, whether "dairying" as such arrived later in the Neolithic or whether it was present even during the LBK. As I'm sure you know there is a lot of disagreement as to whether or not there really was a "Secondary Products Revolution". Also, while there is some evidence of intensive "cattle" dairying around the Sea of Marmara at a date after the earliest Neolithic, "dairying" of sheep and goats could have been going on much earlier, and the presence of more intensive cattle dairying around that area might just be a function of favorable environmental conditions for it in that specific location.

Anyway, it seems there's really recent research on the topic. See:
http://www.haw.uni-heidelberg.de/md/haw/veranstaltungen/programm_food_culture2015.pdf

This presentation looks particularly on point:
"Ancient Lipid Residues Provide Evidence for the Use of Dairy Products since Early Neolithic Phases in Croatia."

I would have liked to have attended a lot of these lectures. I hope they upload the actual papers to researchgate or academic.edu.

I agree dairying as secondary products revolution is just a theory, very little research results have been published, maybe the results of this new study will be published soon

Neither do I find much on the subsistence economy of the Hamangia culture.

But Hamangia seems to have been a different population than the Balkan Neolithic farmers and maybe they had some relatives who infiltrated in other parts of Europe where the Neolithic had allready started.

It looks like the LBK farmers arrived at a dead end around 5000 BC and something or someone tirggered a shift into other subsistence economies.

More anciant DNA could also resolve this puzzle.
 
Thanks Angela, very interesting thread!

Those early farmers in southern Sweden ca. 4000 BC were in my opinion people of I1 haplogroup.

Igmayka from Anthrogenica wrote:

YFull estimates that I1 diverged from I2 27,500 years ago, but began to expand only 4700 years ago. This means that exactly one (pre-)I1 lineage survived across the intervening 22,800 years. I don't see how we will ever know where that one lineage sojourned across so many millennia. If, just for example, we find a 20,000-year-old pre-I1 in Spain, and a 10,000-year-old pre-I1 in the Caucasus, we cannot assume that the one lineage that survived until today ever lived in either of those places. Who knows how many pre-I1 lineages went extinct, and where they might have lived and died?

We have a Transdanubian LBK sample of I1 named BAB5 from Balatonszemes-Bagódomb in Hungary. In my opinion that specific (pre-)I1 was originally a European hunter-gatherer lineage which was assimilated by LBK farmers. Then from LBK culture it got to Lengyel culture, and from Lengyel to TRB culture (Funnelbeaker). It experienced a founder effect, perhaps in the northern group of Funnelbeaker. This is why we have such a high frequency of I1 in Scandinavia. This lineage, among others, could also be responsible for spreading the lactase persistence mutation, as it turns out that the northern group of TRB farmers in southern Sweden were highly skilled in dairy farming, in cattle breeding and calving ca. 6000 ybp:

http://www.archaeology.org/news/3613-150817-neolithic-scandinavian-farmers-were-sophisticated

http://sciencenordic.com/first-scandinavian-farmers-were-far-more-advanced-we-thought

ALMHOV, SWEDEN—Researchers studying cow teeth from southern Sweden dating to around 4000 B.C. have found evidence that early farmers there knew more about livestock husbandry than previously thought. By analyzing the oxygen isotopes in the teeth, the team found that cows were born over the course of a year, not just one season, indicating that the Neolithic farmers could control when calves were born. “It’s very interesting that the farmers of the period were able to manipulate the calving seasons, so all the calves did not come in the spring,” Durham University's Kurt Gron told ScienceNordic. “This is very hard to do, and would not have taken place if the farmers had not intended to do it.” By controlling the calving season, the farmers had access to milk year round, which suggests to some archaeologists that the farmers were so sophisticated that they were probably immigrants from Central Europe where such livestock practices were already established. To read about the technology used by people around this time in Europe, go to "Neolithic Toolkit."

The Transdanubian LBK farmer with I1 lived around 7000-7500 years ago. The oldest samples of I1 from southern Sweden are from 3500 - 3100 years ago. LBK was a Neolithic Non-IE culture. It participated in formation of Lengyel, and northern groups of Lengyel then participated in formation of TRB - which was a farming (Neolithic) culture, but with evidence of assimilation of Mesolithic hunters*. So either that particular lineage of I1 got to TRB from LBK via Lengyel (as the oldest sample of I1 is from Transdanubian LBK), or was assimilated directly by TRB.

Now that they have found evidence of diary farming in southern Sweden from 4000 BC, I'm fairly sure that those were most certainly I1 haplogroup farmers of the northern group of TRB culture.

*Citation:

"(...) The Funnelbeaker culture, short TRB (...) was an archaeological culture in north-central Europe. It developed as a technological merger of local neolithic and mesolithic [hunter] techno-complexes between the lower Elbe and middle Vistula rivers, introducing farming and husbandry as a major source of food to the pottery-using hunter-gatherers north of this line. (...)"

In terms of mtDNA, TRB farmers were a blend of Near Eastern and European-Mesolithic lineages.

Read also about very considerable Non-Indo-European substrate assimilated into Proto-Germanic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_substrate_hypothesis#Non-Indo-European_influence

The non-Indo-European substrate hypothesis attempts to explain the anomalous features of proto-Germanic as a result of creolization between an Indo-European and a non-Indo-European language. Germanicist John A. Hawkins sets forth the arguments for a Germanic substrate. Hawkins argues that the proto-Germans encountered a non-Indo-European speaking people and borrowed many features from their language. He hypothesizes that the first sound shift of Grimm's Law was the result of non-native speakers attempting to pronounce Indo-European sounds, and that they resorted to the closest sounds in their own language in their attempt to pronounce them.

At least 30% of Proto-Germanic vocabulary was of Non-Indo-European origin.

Most likely that came from TRB farmers, since now we know that Battle Axe* was an IE culture.

*Battle Axe = another name for Corded Ware, especially its Scandinavian branch.

=========================

Northern range of farmers ca. 4500 BC (6500 years ago) and first farmers in Sweden - 4000 BC:
(implying that migrating farmers pushed into Scandinavia during those 500 years in-between):

Farmers.png


Map based on these sources:

"Demic and cultural diffusion propagated the Neolithic transition across different regions of Europe":
(in Early Neolithic in Southern Europe diffusion of farming was almost fully demic, later in Northern Europe it was more cultural):

http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/106/20150166.figures-only

And this information provided by Angela:

http://www.archaeology.org/news/3613-150817-neolithic-scandinavian-farmers-were-sophisticated

http://sciencenordic.com/first-scandinavian-farmers-were-far-more-advanced-we-thought

As for Neolithization - just like the title of that paper linked above says, Neolithization was not only demic, but also a cultural process (i.e. assimilation of local hunters into farmer communities).

There are several theories as to how did farmers spread into Europe. One says that they originated in Anatolia (Asia Minor) and came into the Balkans and then onwards. Another theory says that they originated in the Levant and came through Cyprus, Crete and Greece. In fact both theories can be partially true as there could be more than just one wave of immigrations. Farmers from Mesopotamia, Caucasus and North Africa could also participate in some regions. It seems that most of immigrants were from Western and Northern Anatolia, though. The spread of farming was also due to local hunters gradually adopting farming from farmers. But that was especially in Late Neolithic times, when we observe an increase in fequency of indigenous hunter lineages - alongside immigrant lineages - in people from farming communities of Central and Northern Europe. In Early Neolithic times, when farming was spreading in Southern Europe, assimilation of local hunter-gatherers into farming communities was much more limited.

The spread of farmers was initially (Early Neolithic) very rapid - along rivers they were colonizing 3 km per year, IIRC. They slowed down as they went into colder or less fertile areas, and there more of local hunters could be assimilated. Already in Middle Neolithic and then in Late Neolithic samples we observe more of local, Mesolithic lineages in Neolithic communities (there is even an autosomally unmixed Mesolithic sample in a Neolithic cultural context - a "freshly" absorbed hunter).

But Scandinavians are still to a larger degree descended from those Anatolians, than Estonians, Finns, Lithuanians, or Latvians. Of all groups, Estonians have the most of European hunter ancestry, Sardinians have the most of ancestry from Near Eastern farmers.

=========================

As for Bell Beaker influence in Scandinavia on pre-PGmc (early Proto-Germanic):

IMO speakers of pre-PGmc language evolved in Scandinavia, primarily from the mixture of three groups, which came to Scandinavia as distinct immigrant waves: 1) people of the northern group of TRB (Funnelbeaker) culture, who were Neolithic agriculturalists (Non-IE substrate); 2) people of Corded Ware culture, which was Indo-European; and 3) people of Bell Beaker culture, also Indo-European.

Phonetically and grammatically Proto-Germanic (PGmc) language was most closely related to Proto-Balto-Slavic language, leading to the conclusion that the main carriers of pre-PGmc were probably Corded Ware people, and that Proto-Germanic evolved from a common ancestral Balto-Slavo-Germanic language (this is currently the mainstream hypothesis, AFAIK).

However - lexically PGmc was most closely related to both Proto-Italo-Celtic and Proto-Balto-Slavic, but similarities with Balto-Slavic are considered to be cognates (i.e. inherited from an earlier common origin), while similarities with Proto-It-CL are considered to be loanwords, albeit mostly archaic ones (probably from times of pre-Proto-Italo-Celtic phase, so those loanwords were inherited early on).

About 30% or more of PGmc vocabulary is actually Non-IE, picked up from those TRB farmers.

In archaeological terms there was considerable influence of Hallstatt culture (Celts) on Nordic Bronze Age, which led to emergence of Jastorf culture. And later there was also considerable influence of La Tene culture (Celts) on Jastorf culture, which lead to latenization of the latter (here Latenization = an archaeological term referring to the diffusion of the Celtic material La Tene culture).

These archaic loanwords from pre-Proto-It-CL could be from earlier times, from Beaker people.
 
It will be very interesting if we can get some yDna from Hamangia. Some researchers claim an Anatolian link, although there's some dispute about that. It does appear that there was some change in mtDna in Central Europe from the early to the mid Neolithic. We saw that in the earlier Haak papers on mtDna. Perhaps there was movement from the west but perhaps there was also new gene flow from the Near East whether or not it was specifically through Hamangia. Hopefully, we'll know more soon.

I don't know, however, whether "dairying" as such arrived later in the Neolithic or whether it was present even during the LBK. As I'm sure you know there is a lot of disagreement as to whether or not there really was a "Secondary Products Revolution". Also, while there is some evidence of intensive "cattle" dairying around the Sea of Marmara at a date after the earliest Neolithic, "dairying" of sheep and goats could have been going on much earlier, and the presence of more intensive cattle dairying around that area might just be a function of favorable environmental conditions for it in that specific location.

Anyway, it seems there's really recent research on the topic. See:
http://www.haw.uni-heidelberg.de/md/haw/veranstaltungen/programm_food_culture2015.pdf

This presentation looks particularly on point:
"Ancient Lipid Residues Provide Evidence for the Use of Dairy Products since Early Neolithic Phases in Croatia."

I would have liked to have attended a lot of these lectures. I hope they upload the actual papers to researchgate or academic.edu.

Angela, please have a look at this :

http://mapmistress.blog.com/2012/04/24/mesolithic-neolithic-agriculture-einkorn-wheat/

and this map :

http://mapmistress.blog.com/files/2012/04/einkornorigins.gif

This map seems to be made by a hobbyist, I'm not sure what to think of it.

I would associate the expansion of Einkorn subsp. Aegilopoides with G2a
and Einkornsubsp. Monococcum with Hamangia
but the origin for of Einkornsubsp. Monococcum is NW Anatolia and
I don't know of any early neolithic sites that grew cereals in that area. Do you ?

P.S. the Levant is another story as far as I know, they started off with emmer wheat, not einkorn
 
Bicicleur, are we sure this person's definitions are correct and he is showing the spread of cultivated einkorn?

This is what I found as to Einkorn...

https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1996/V3-156.html
Wild einkorn Triticum boeoticum includes both the single grain T. aegilopoides and the two grain T. thaoudar and T. urartu. Cultivated einkorn is T. monococcum

So, if this is correct, both the aegilopoides that he shows spreading from the northern Levant /southwestern Turkey coast and the Boeoticum that he shows spreading south from the hill country between the upper Euphrates and Tigris Rivers are wild Einkhorn. The only domesticated variety on his map would be the T.monococcum that he shows spreading from northern Anatolia. Yes?

This says basically the same thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkorn_wheat
"Einkorn wheat commonly grows wild in the hill country in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent and Anatolia although it has a wider distribution reaching into the Balkans and south to Jordan near the Dead Sea."

It also says this: Einkorn wheat was one of the first plants to be domesticated and cultivated. The earliest clear evidence of the domestication of Einkorn dates from 10, 600 to 9,900 years before present (8,650 BC to 7,950 BC) from two archaeological sites in southern Turkey. Weiss, Ehud and Zohary, Daniel (October 2011), "The Neolithic Southwest Asian Founder Crops: Their Biology and Archaeobotany", Current Anthropology, Vol 52, No. S4, pp. S239-S240.[1"

This source says much the same:

"Einkorn is thought to have originated in the upper area of the fertile crescent of the Near East (Tigris-Euphrates regions).

[FONT=&quot]http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/einkorn-ancient-

[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]So, I don't see why he shows it originating or spreading from northern Anatolia.

As for emmer, I found this in the Wiki article on it:
" The origin of wild emmer has been suggested, without universal agreement among scholars, to be the Karaca Dag mountain region of southeastern Turkey. "

There's also this:

"The oldest evidence of domesticated emmer wheat was found near Damascus, Syria dating from 7,650 to 8,200 years BC. The dryness of the site, requiring irrigation for agriculture, suggests that the emmer was introduced as an already domesticated plant from elsewhere outside the Damascus Basin. Emmer is found in a large number of Neolithic sites scattered around the fertile crescent. From its earliest days of cultivation, emmer was a more prominent crop that its cereal contemporaries and competitors, einkorn wheat and barley.

Weiss, Ehud and Zohary, Daniel (October 2011), "The Neolithic Southwest Asian Founder Crops, Current Anthropology, Vo 52, Supplement 4, p. S240

And this, in the Wiki article on Wheat:
Cultivation of wheat began to spread beyond the Fertile Crescent after about 8000 BCE. Jared Diamond traces the spread of cultivated emmer wheat starting in the Fertile Crescent sometime before 8800 BCE. Archaeological analysis of wild emmer indicates that it was first cultivated in the southern Levant with finds dating back as far as 9600 BCE.[19][20]


So, I don't know whether it was the southern Levant or somewhere slightly north of it where Emmer was first domesticated.Maybe the Einkorn might have been domesticated a little before Emmer?

The sources do make it clear that Einkorn does better than Emmer in colder climates, so that's probably why emmer was more popular in many parts of the Near East?

Depending on the area of colonization in Europe, one type might be more productive than the others, I would think. In the Balkans, however, they used both.

Both of the wheat varieties seem to be present very early in the Neolithic in the Balkans (Starcevo) in 6400 BC (present day Serbia). (They also brought with them peas, lentils and barley. Flax and bitter vetch seem to have arrived about a thousand years later, and chick peas much later yet.)
http://www.researchgate.net/profile..._in_Serbia/links/54a7c9ad0cf256bf8bb6f4c0.pdf

Bread wheat/durum wheat was present in the late Starcevo, but it was very rare. By Vinca, it's present in about half the sites, but again in low amounts. High amounts aren't really found until the Bronze Age.

Btw, they also happen to talk about the domesticated animals, and they were indeed present in early Starcevo, with sheep being predominant, although there were also goats, pig and cattle. (So, I don't see how the "eastern" farmers were more herders than the "western" farmers, unless by that is meant that the "eastern" farmers didn't do much farming. The domesticated animal "package" seems to be the same.)

However, the proportions changed by the time you get to Vinca, with cows dominating.
 

This thread has been viewed 11034 times.

Back
Top