An Analysis Of Ancient European Settlements Revealed That Prehistoric Humans Followed A Mainly Vegetarian Diet
Long ago, being a vegetarian was a common practice among prehistoric humans living in early European settlements.
After conducting an analysis of ancient “mega-sites” occupied by the Trypillia culture, researchers found that the people followed a diet that was mainly vegetarian.
The sites they studied were built around 6,000 years ago and are located in what is now Ukraine and Moldova. The early settlements covered an expanse of 791 acres and accommodated up to 15,000 inhabitants.
At the time of their existence, they were the largest communities in the world. The Trypillia settlements thrived for several generations, but not much is known about the people. Their food supply, in particular, was poorly understood.
Researchers knew that most of the inhabitants participated in an agrarian society. They grew crops and raised plenty of livestock, but the question remained of how they were able to sustain such large groups of people at a time.
According to a paleoecologist at the Kiel University in Germany named Frank Schlütz, the mega-sites survived based on a system of “extremely sophisticated food and pasture management.”
The researchers reached this conclusion after analyzing the carbon and nitrogen isotopes in human remains, animal bones, and remnants of crops from the Trypillia settlements.
Their findings helped them determine how livestock was kept, what crop fertilization practices the people engaged in, and what their dietary habits were like.
“The measuring of isotopes was done in specialized laboratories on charred cereal grains and peas—in the soil only charred plant material is durable—and on collagen extracted from human and animal bones,” said Schlütz.
alicja neumiler – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
He explained that isotope values increase with every step up in the food chain. Isotopes are members of a family of the same element that contains equal numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons.
By calculating the isotopes from the different foods that the early humans consumed, researchers were able to figure out the amount of food sources they had.
The results suggest that people living in Trypillia societies had a predominantly vegetarian diet, with peas, cereals, and grains as staple foods.
Only about 10 percent of their diet consisted of animal products. Furthermore, grazing animals, like cattle and sheep, were kept in fenced pastures. The manure produced by these animals was used to fertilize crops, particularly peas.
Schlütz refers to the discovery as “the earliest evidence of very intensive manuring of legumes.” He also said, “The intensive manuring was probably necessary to achieve large harvests in a small area. By this, the main task of the animals was to produce manure for fertilization.”
This approach allowed their population to flourish by helping them maintain a balanced and nutritious diet without the need for much meat. These new findings also led them to identify the demise of the early cities.
By 3000 B.C., the Trypillia communities no longer existed. Since their food system was pretty solid, the cause of their downfall seemed to be sociopolitical inequalities. As social tensions rose within the large communities, people started to shift back to smaller settlements.
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