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This publication presents research on the first peasants of the Linear Pottery group in Brandenburg, northern Germany. The region is of particular interest because it is situated in the absolute periphery of the Linear Pottery area. The volume combines the results on settlement features, pottery and stone tools with archaeobotanical and archaeozoological studies on the diet and economy of these Neolithic people with focus on the site of Lietzow 10. This holistic approach fulfils a research desideratum, because the state of knowledge about such enclaves of agricultural life in the midst of the settlement area of forager groups is still incomplete. The excavation of the site Lietzow 10 yielded features from which a settlement site with two farmsteads could be reconstructed, which was inhabited for 2-3 generations. Large quantities of pottery were found, according to typology dating into the period around 5100 to 5000 BCE at the latest, i.e. to the younger LBK. Several radiocarbon dates support this chronological classification and confirm the Linear Pottery chronologies from Central Germany for Brandenburg features. Despite its peripheral location, the settlement site was by no means isolated; the pottery finds even attest to long-distance contacts. The supply of raw material for the stone implements points to a regional network, for flint and grindstone raw material were not extracted in the vicinity of the site, but were apparently mined some distance away. The archaeozoological and archaeobotanical investigations - for the latter, samples from other Neolithic settlements in Havelland were also available - provide insights into the economic practices and diet of the settlers. The cereals found were almost exclusively emmer, other crops were flax and pea. Animal husbandry was of outstanding importance for the food supply. Among the domestic animals, cattle probably played the greatest economic role, but pigs and small ruminants were also significant. Both, the crop and the domestic animal evidence show a fully developed agriculture. In addition, there is evidence for extensive gathering. Hunting - unlike fishing - did not play a major role in the diet, although wide range of game species is represented.

During the Bronze Age the new, eponymous, highly-desired metal spread widely across Europe. It changed labour sectors, networks, worldviews and societies, and brought with it different transformations in diverse areas of life and death. With this book, all changes from the Bronze Age for the area of Schleswig-Holstein were put under the spotlight. In this framework of research, the Mang de Bargen site near Bornhöved (district of Segeberg), once the target of gravel works, developed into one of the best-dated Bronze Age sites in Schleswig-Holstein. The cemetery was used from the Late Neolithic to the Pre-Roman Iron Age as a burial site. During this long period of use, several cultural changes, including burial rites, grave furnishings, and further activities, can be traced. The rigorous dating of almost all of the graves allows, in particular, the precise identification of the moment of transition from inhumation to cremation, as well as the shift from burial mounds with log coffins to the beginning of the use of urns in northern Germany. Anthropological analyses of the cremations from Mang de Bargen and other sites in the area also reveal the age-related placement and furnishings, which might in turn stimulate new discussions. A comparison with environmental data (archaeobotany and palynology) also shows the scope of human impact in comparison to the archaeological investigations. The inclusion of data on graves, hoards, and settlements for the whole of Schleswig-Holstein enables this fully-investigated cemetery to be contextually embedded, and shows how — and how differently — transformation processes manifested themselves at local, regional, and supra-regional levels. Volume 2 comprises the plates, as well as the following external reports: the anthropological report (Storch), the archaeobotanical study (Filipović) and the palaeoecological study on the site (Feeser). Volume 1 comprises the main text, the feature catalogue, the site plans, the main site profiles, the results of the radiometric dating and the interim results of the preliminary anthropological investigations.

Plants have constituted the basis of human subsistence. This volume focuses on plant food ingredients that were consumed by the members of past societies and on the ways these ingredients were transformed into food. The thirty chapters of this book unfold the story of culinary transformation of cereals, pulses as well as of a wide range of wild and cultivated edible plants. Regional syntheses provide insights on plant species choices and changes over time and fragments of recipes locked inside amorphous charred masses. Grinding equipment, cooking installations and cooking pots are used to reveal the ancient cooking steps in order to pull together the pieces of a culinary puzzle of the past. From the big picture of spatiotemporal patterns and changes to the micro-imaging of usewear on grinding tool surfaces, the book attempts for the first time a comprehensive and systematic approach to ancient plant food culinary transformation. Focusing mainly on Europe and the Mediterranean world in prehistory, the book expands to other regions such as South Asia and Latin America and covers a time span from the Palaeolithic to the historic periods. Several of the contributions stem from original research conducted in the context of ERC project PlantCult: Investigating the Plant Food Cultures of Ancient Europe. The book’s exploration into ancient cuisines culminates with an investigation of the significance of ethnoarchaeology towards a better understanding of past foodways as well as of the impact of archaeology in shaping modern culinary and consumer trends. The book will be of interest to archaeologists, food historians, agronomists, botanists as well as the wider public with an interest in ancient cooking.

Broomcorn/common/proso millet (Panicum miliaceum) is a cereal crop that originated in East Asia and was transferred westward to Europe, where it was introduced in the mid-2nd millennium BCE, at the height of the Bronze Age. Archaeobotanists from the Collaborative Research Centre 1266, supported by many colleagues, conducted a large-scale programme of radiocarbon dating of millet grains from prehistoric Europe. They discovered that the spread of this crop on the continent happened quickly, extending far and wide. What do we know about the (pre)history of this crop in Europe? The workshop organised by the CRC 1266 at Kiel University in 2019 encouraged the discussion on the circumstances and consequences of early broomcorn millet cultivation in Europe. This book brings together many of the workshop papers and reflects the diverse topics and research areas covered. The contributions inform us on the range of cultivated and collected plants from the time before and after the start of millet cultivation in Europe; present the cultural setting in which millet arrived; discuss possible reasons driving the acceptance of this innovation; and reconstruct possible uses of millet and the methods of its cultivation, processing and storage. Not just the plant economy, but also the animal economy is represented, since millet was and is grown for both humans and animals. Techniques used to trace millet archaeologically are continually being developed or improved, and this book describes the application of a few of them. This broad-based compilation of papers adds another layer to the dynamic picture of the Bronze Age and the interconnected continent. It also illustrates the complexity of the research on the diffusion of agricultural innovations.