The same spot - Two different worlds: Plant and animal remains from multiculture site at Sadowie in southern Poland

Abstract

The studied site, located in loess, well-drained area, was occupied in the Neolithic (the Lengyel-Polgar cycle, the second half of the 5th millennium BC) and the Early Bronze Age (the Mierzanowice culture, ca. 2200–1600 BCE), separated by about two millennia of hiatus. Archaeobotanical data were relatively abundant in the first occupation phase while they were very limited in the second phase. Wood charcoal and animal bones assemblages were different, not abundant in the first phase and relatively numerous in the second one. The settlers cultivated glume wheats, mostly einkorn. Chaff fragments of the new glume wheat type (NGW), recently confirmed as belonging to Triticum timopheevii, observed in Neolithic samples, were found for the first time in southern Poland. Fruits and seed of weeds and other plants were more numerous and variable in the Neolithic but were also present in the Bronze Age assemblage. In the first phase, wood charcoal assemblage was strongly dominated by oak with only small admixture of pine, birch and Maloideae, while in the second phase taxonomic diversity was higher than in the Neolithic times, with oak remaining the predominant taxon. In both phases, vicinity of open-canopy forests and thickets is indicated. Such an open landscape can also be inferred based on the presence of wild horse, which appeared in the Neolithic layer. Archaeozoological data show dominance of cattle remains in both assemblages, but taphonomical differences are visible between the two phases, with considerably worse preservation of bones in the Neolithic features than the Early Bronze Age ones. Thus, we can conclude that small amount of carpological remains in the Early Bronze Age settlement phase is not caused by unfavourable post-depositional conditions in comparison to the earlier, Neolithic phase, in which significantly more remains of cultivated plants were detected. The difference in composition of macroscopic plant remains can be caused by: 1) different type of subsistence strategy during the Early Bronze Age, probably dominated by animal husbandry or using of different plant resources underrepresented in archaeobotanical assemblages, 2) differences in food storage and preparation, 3) randomness caused by general scarcity of the data.