Food and Farming Systems in the Neolithic – an Impossible Vista?

Abstract

The management and utilisation of mostly novel plant and animal species for food and other products has long been recognised as a central component of the Neolithic. The period has frequently been characterised as marking a tipping point in food procurement activities, a shift that has had a fundamental impact on societies today. While there may be little difference between the modes and means of subsistence strategies (e.g. Ingold 1988) – from hunting to management of domesticated species, and from collection of wild plants to planting and cropping of domesticate cultivars – what is significantly different is that for the first time over large regions of Europe the major building blocks of Neolithic diet were the same, i.e. cereal and pulse cultivars and domesticate animal species. Across this vast geographic span, we might expect that such building blocks were re-configured and adapted at local or regional scales (e.g. Manning et al. 2013). There is also growing evidence for differences in organisational scale, e.g. between intensive small-scale garden plots and extensive systems of transhumance (Bogaard et al. 2016; Montes et al. 2020); differences in resource utilisation, e.g. mountain pastures and forests (Schibler 2017; Knockaert et al. 2017; Hejcmanová, Stejskalová, and Hejcman 2013); differences in how plant and animal systems integrated with one another (Fraser et al. 2013; Styring et al. 2017; Gillis et al. 2017), as well as differences in food processing techniques. This variation appears as much related to the pre-existing needs and cultural identity of populations as to the environmental context and niche construction (e.g. Kreuz and Marinova 2017; Gillis et al. 2019). At the same time, the qualities – and indeed agency – of these new food sources and procurement practices undoubtedly structured the lives of communities in turn, creating new seasons of activity and gradually shaping social identities and traditional practices. Within this, events such as the slaughter of animals or the gathering of harvests became important mechanisms to celebrate community and reaffirm bonds between different groups (Marciniak 2005; Wright et al. 2014; Madgwick et al. 2019). As domesticated animals and plants gained an economic hold within societies, we can imagine that their symbolic value and importance for the well-being of communities also grew (Bogucki 1988). For example, the multiple iconographic representations of cattle are probably a reflection of their greater productivity (milk, meat, and traction) in comparison to other domesticates (Marciniak 2005; Le Quellec 2011). Cattle are also relatively slow-growing, requiring investment in terms of fodder, adequate access to water and housing in order to reach adulthood and maximise this productivity (Bogucki 1993; Russell 1998; Gillis et al. 2017). The number of societies, past and present, for whom cattle are central to wealth and status reminds us that any discussions of productivity must also consider the generation of surplus, and the control of this surplus, as well the relationship to wealth accumulation and inequality (Bogaard 2017; Flannery and Marcus 2012).