Evaluating caprine remains of the Swedish Funnel Beaker culture through ZooMS

Abstract

In northern Europe, the first indications of a Neolithic lifestyle appear around 4000 cal BC from northern Germany up to middle Sweden and south-eastern Norway in an apparently short period of time, largely carried by immigrant populations bringing new species of plants and animals into the region. However, the nature of this domestication “package” is not everywhere the same, whereby both environmental and cultural filters acted on the particular set of species cultivated and bred in different regions. In Neolithic Scandinavia, cattle, pigs, and caprines (sheep and goat) are all present in varying proportions, with cattle more prominent in Denmark and pigs more prominent in more northerly areas. However, little is known about the ratio of sheep to goat remains within this region, largely due to difficulties in morphologically separating the two species. In this paper, we report the results from ZooMS analysis of 45 sheep/goat bone samples from two recently excavated Funnel Beaker settlements in Karleby, Falbygden, Sweden. The ZooMS analyses gave a clear and somewhat surprising result: 33 of the samples were classed as sheep, one as deer, and none of them as goat. In all likelihood, goats have not been present at all on these sites. A survey of the literature shows that while small numbers of goats are likely present in Denmark from the Early Neolithic, their presence in Sweden at this time is ambiguous and the few claims merit reassessment. Furthermore, the low numbers in Scandinavia compared to central and southern Europe suggests an overall geographic trend, with decreasing proportions of caprines as well as goats in the north.