New evidence on the earliest domesticated animals and possible small-scale husbandry in Atlantic NW Europe

Philippe Crombé,Liesbeth Messiaen,Dimitri Teetaert,Mathieu Boudin,Christophe Snoeck,Kim Aluwé

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-77002-4

Abstract

The distribution of the first domesticated animals and crops along the coastal area of Atlantic NW Europe, which triggered the transition from a hunter-gatherer-fisher to a farmer-herder economy, has been debated for many decades among archaeologists. While some advocate a gradual transition in which indigenous hunter-gatherers from the very beginning of the 5th millennium cal BC progressively adopted Neolithic commodities, others are more in favor of a rapid transition near the end of the 5th millennium caused by a further northwest migration of farmers-herders colonizing the lowlands. Here, radiocarbon dated bones from sheep/goat and possibly also cattle are presented which provide the first hard evidence of an early introduction of domesticated animals within a hunter-gatherer context in NW Belgium, situated ca. 80 km north of the agro-pastoral frontier. Based on their isotope signal it is suggested that these first domesticates were probably not merely obtained through exchange with contemporaneous farmers but were kept locally, providing evidence of small-scale local stockbreeding in the lowlands maybe as early as ca. 4800/4600 cal BC. If confirmed by future in-depth isotope analyses, the latter testifies of intense contact and transmission of knowledge in this early contact period, which is also visible in the material culture, such as the lithic and pottery technology. It also implies direct and prolonged involvement of farmer-herders, either through visiting specialists or intermarriage, which follows recent genetic evidence demonstrating much more hunter-gatherer ancestry in early farmer’s genes in western Europe compared to central and SE Europe.

Highlights

The coastal lowlands of Northwest Europe are situated at the periphery of the extensive loess belt of Central and West Europe, which was colonized in the course of the 6th millennium cal BC by migrating farmers from the Near East and Anatolia[1,2,3,4]
When the remains were assigned to size-classes, it led to an increase of bone fragments from primarily medium-sized mammals, and large mammals
The present study irrefutably proofs the presence of domesticated sheep/goat and most likely cattle from ca. 4800/4600 cal BC along the NW margins of the agro-pastoral frontier, and supports the model viewing the neolithization of NW Europa as a long-term process

Summary

Introduction

The coastal lowlands of Northwest Europe are situated at the periphery of the extensive loess belt of Central and West Europe, which was colonized in the course of the 6th millennium cal BC by migrating farmers from the Near East and Anatolia[1,2,3,4]. The speed of transition suggests demic diffusion of pioneering farmers from Central Europe into the lowlands of NW E urope[17,19], as recently supported by genetic e vidence[4], not all scholars agree on this[13,15,20] Central to this debate is the reliability and meaning of isolated finds of domesticated animal bones and cereal grains, claimed to pre-date 4300/4000 cal BC. Sheep/goats and pigs from the Dutch Swifterbant sites of Hardinxveld “De Bruin”, Brandwijk and Schokland[8,9], interpreted as proof of small-scale introduction of domesticates from at least 4700–4450 cal BC onwards (for a complete list of finds s ee[12]) Most of these finds have been strongly questioned by the adherents of the second model using genetic[21], stratigraphic and/or dating evidence[10,11,12,14,17]. Thanks to the subsequent covering with peat(y) and Scientific Reports | (2020) 10:20083 |

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