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Diet, dispersal and social differentiation during the Copper Age in eastern Hungary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2016

Julia I. Giblin  and
Richard W. Yerkes
Julia I. Giblin
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Anthropology, Quinnipiac University, 275 Mount Carmel Avenue, Hamden CT 06518-1908, USA (Email: julia.giblin@quinnipiac.edu)
Richard W. Yerkes
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, The Ohio State University, 4034 Smith Laboratory, 174 West 18th Avenue, Columbus OH 43210-1106, USA
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Abstract

Why did the early farming societies of south-east Europe ‘collapse’ and become apparently less complex at the end of the Neolithic? Stable isotope analysis of human bone collagen from Late Neolithic and Copper Age cemeteries in eastern Hungary provides new insights into this question by exploring dietary changes during this key transitional period. Results show that diet did not change significantly over time, and there was no evidence that individuals of different sex or social status were consuming privileged diets. The changes of this period appear to indicate a reorganisation of society, perhaps based around extended families, with greater dispersal across the landscape, but without reliance on dairying or the emergence of powerful leaders.

Keywords

HungaryNeolithicCopper Agedietstable isotope analysiscarbonnitrogen
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 90 , Issue 349 , February 2016 , pp. 81 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

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