Isotope and morphometrical evidence reveals the technological package associated with agriculture adoption in western Europe
Araus, José L. (Universitat de Barcelona)
Gascon, Mireia (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Prehistòria)
Ros-Sabé, Eva (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Prehistòria)
Piqué Huerta, Raquel (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Prehistòria)
Rezzouk, Fatima Zahra (Centre of Research in Agrotechnology (AGROTECNIO))
Aguilera Pujabet, Mònica (Universitat de Lleida)
Voltas, Jordi (Universitat de Lleida)
Peña-Chocarro, Leonor (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Espanya))
Pérez Jordà, Guillem (Universitat de València)
Terradas, Xavier (Institució Milà i Fontanals)
Palomo Pérez, Antoni (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Prehistòria)
Ferrio, Juan Pedro (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Espanya). Estación Experimental de Aula Dei)
Antolín, Ferran (University of Basel)

Data:	2024
Resum:	The emergence and spread of agriculture represented a landmark in societal development, triggering the Neolithic revolution. The spread of agriculture from the Fertile Crescent to the western edge of Europe has been extensively researched, but our knowledge of the actual crop husbandry practices is still limited. We followed a dual approach: in-depth study of La Draga, one of the earliest agricultural settlements in the western Mediterranean and exceptional for its abundance and preservation of archaeobotanical remains, together with a regional perspective including other early agricultural sites. Our results support archaeological models of agriculture diffusion and denote favorable water conditions and evolved crop characteristics when agriculture reached Europe's western edge. This study aimed to reconstruct the environmental conditions and the crop management practices and plant characteristics when agriculture appeared in western Europe. We analyzed oak charcoal and a large number of cereal caryopsides recovered from La Draga (Girona, Spain), an early (5300 to 4800 cal. BC) agricultural site from the Iberian Peninsula. The carbon isotope discrimination (Δ 13 C) values of oak, the dominant forest species in the region, indicates prevalence of a wet climate at the site. Further, we reconstructed crop management conditions, achievable yield, and crop characteristics through the analysis of Δ 13 C, nitrogen isotope composition (δ 15 N), nitrogen content, and the reconstructed weight of wheat and barley caryopsides, following protocols developed by our team [Araus et al. , Nat. Commun. 5, 3953 (2014)] and comparison of these parameters with present-day organic agriculture in the region. In parallel, a regional perspective was achieved through the study of wheat and barley grains of seventeen Neolithic sites from the western Mediterranean. The results suggest that rather than small-garden cultivation, a more extensive agriculture was practiced under good water availability and moderate manuring. Moreover, results from La Draga evidence that grain weight and spike morphology were comparable to contemporary cereals. Growing conditions and the prevalence of improved crop traits indicate that agriculture was fairly consolidated at the time it reached the western edge of Europe.
Ajuts:	Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2019-109254GB-C2 Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2022-138307OB-C21 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2021/SGR-00190 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2021/SGR-00501 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2021/SGR-00688 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2021/SGR-00995
Nota:	Altres ajuts: Swiss National Science Fundation (PP00P1_170515) and through diverse support from Generalitat de Catalunya (Spain) including two ICREA (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats) Academia fellowship (2022 call), the Grant CLT009/18/00050, the Reference Group S74_23R (Gobierno de Aragón)
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Agriculture ; Stable isotopes ; Neolithic ; Paleo reconstruction ; Cereals
Publicat a:	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 121, Num. 32 (July 2024) , ISSN 1091-6490

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2401065121
PMID: 39074289

12 p, 2.7 MB

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