“Move, Eat, Repeat” in the Upper Seine Valley (France) during the Bronze Age: a multidisciplinary and multi-isotopic approach
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1The Upper Seine Valley sees during the Bronze Age (2100-900 cal.BC) a significant increase in settlements and necropolis characterized by a variety of architectures and funerary practices. The material culture indicates that this variability is due to a mixture of two cultural traditions linked to the Atlantic culture with influences from the British Isles and the Continental culture with influences from the east that find their roots in the Upper Rhine area (Tumulus Culture and then Urnfield Culture). In order to reconstruct the cultural identity of these societies that share different influences, our aim was to assess their subsistence strategies, food production and consumption and detect mobility events using multi-proxy biochemical investigations. Carbon, nitrogen and sulphur stable isotope analysis on bone collagen was conducted on humans of different age and sex, wild and domesticated animals (pigs, cows, sheep, horse, deer, dogs) and seeds from cultivated plants (wheat, barley, lentil, millet) selected from 11 sites and dating from the Early to the Late Bronze Age. These preliminary results show a wide variability in carbon and nitrogen values suggesting varying C3 and C4 plant consumption and diverse animal protein intake by humans. A Bayesian model applied to the present dataset confirms this evidence. Three main outcomes are highlighted: 1) a variety of harvesting strategies with different manure intensity according to the cereal species; 2) the dietary patterns seem to be site-specific; 3) the increase in millet consumption and animal protein intake during the Late Bronze Age. Moreover, preliminary sulphur data highlight the presence of individual mobility, likely more significant for men. These dietary variations, differential agricultural strategies and mobility seem to be in line with the results from Switzerland and various areas in southern Europe, e.g. Italy, Greece, supporting major global changes in all Europe at the end of the Bronze Age.
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Alessandra Varalli, Rebecca Peake, Estelle Herrscher, Ginette Auxiette, Vincent Balter, Valérie Delattre, Patrick Gouge, Claude Mordant, Mafalda Roscio et Françoise Toulemonde, « “Move, Eat, Repeat” in the Upper Seine Valley (France) during the Bronze Age: a multidisciplinary and multi-isotopic approach », Bulletins et mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris [En ligne], 34(S) | 2021, mis en ligne le 31 décembre 2021, consulté le 01 avril 2023. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/bmsap/9322 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/bmsap.9322
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