The Milky Way: Mobility and Economy at the Turn of the 3rd Millennium in Southern Central Europe

Julie B Dunne*, Marton Szilagyi, Emmanuelle J A Casanova, Seren Griffiths, Timothy D J Knowles, Richard P Evershed, Daniela Hofmann*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

In the light of discussions surrounding the social changes attributed to the arrival of the Corded Ware culture in central Europe, here we investigate the economic strategies of one of the cultural complexes of the immediately preceding Late Neolithic. The Cham culture of southern Bavaria is characterised by a variety of economic choices but problems remain in synthesising and combining archaeozoological and archaeobotanical evidence. Using lipid residue analysis from Cham culture pottery excavated at the unenclosed settlement of Riedling, Lower Bavaria, we succeed in identifying a dairying economy at this time. Compound-specific lipid radiocarbon dates are then combined with other samples to provide a formal estimate for the duration of activity at Riedling and the first Bayesian chronological model for the Cham culture as a whole. Although data are currently not fine-grained enough to distinguish between competing models for site permanence, we suggest that the Cham culture pattern fits into a wider central European trend of greater mobility and economic flexibility in the pre-Corded Ware horizon, concluding that key economic strategies previously associated with ‘steppe invasions’ were already present in the preceding centuries. Finally, the demonstrated use of cups for milk-based products, as opposed to alcoholic drinks as previously suggested, leads us to propose possible alternative uses and users for these items.
Original languageEnglish
JournalProceedings of the Prehistoric Society
Volume82
Issue number317
Early online date23 May 2023
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 23 May 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors wish to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, grant number 82751946) for funding post-excavation analysis of the Riedling material. We would also like to thank the NERC for partial funding of the National Environmental Isotope Facility (NEIF; contract no. NE/V003917/1). NERC (contract no. NE/V003917/1), the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013), and European Research Council Grant Agreement number 340923 have funded GC-MS capabilities, while NERC (contract no. NE/V003917/1) and the University of Bristol deserve thanks for funding the GC-IRMS capabilities. Ian Bull, Alison Kuhl, and Helen Whelton are thanked for technical help. Christoph Steinmann kindly shared C dates from Piesenkofen. We are also grateful to the wider Riedling team for their input, in particular also to Gabriele Raßhofer for advice on the pottery. Finally, we would like to thank Catherine Frieman (ANU) for pushing us to think about child health. 14

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Prehistoric Society.

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