Dietary practices, cultural and social identity in the Early Bronze Age southern Caucasus

Abstract

Food and its interactions with the environmental, economic, social, and cultural spheres play an essential role in communities’ cultural identity. This theory has been verified by an analysis of the Kura-Araxes (KA) culture, characterised by original cultural developments, which spread in the South Caucasus around the middle of the fourth millennium BC. This research aims to study the variability of dietary choices at the individual and population levels by analysing stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen (δ13C, δ15N). To monitor regional and diachronic changes in dietary patterns, we performed analysis on human, animal, and plant materials (n = 144) from eight KA highland and lowland sites in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia compared with data (n = 39) from Post-KA sites already published (Herrscher et al. 2016, 2018b). Isotopic data show no significant differences with altitude. The KA diet is characterised by higher consumption of herbivore meat than pork and higher barley consumption than wheat. No relationship with age at death, sex, and burial traits were observed, suggesting “equal” access to food among community members. Human low isotope variability shows persistence over KA’s entire duration (3,500-2,500 BC), while it is significantly different between KA and Post-KA subjects. The results confirm the homogeneity of KA communities’ food practices that reinforces the theory of a “strong cultural identity” of the KA populations.