Agricultural production in the 1st millennium BCE in Northwest Iberia: results of carbon isotope analysis
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Agricultural production in the 1st millennium BCE in Northwest Iberia: results of carbon isotope analysis Adrián Mora-González 1,2 & Andrés Teira-Brión 3 Antonio Delgado-Huertas 2
&
Arsenio Granados-Torres 2 & Francisco Contreras-Cortés 1 &
Received: 2 January 2018 / Accepted: 20 September 2018 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract This work presents the first results of carbon isotope (δ13C) analysis of seeds (Triticum dicoccum, Triticum aestivum/durum, Triticum cf. spelta and Hordeum vulgare L.) from archaeological contexts from the settlement sites of A Fontela and Castrovite in Northwest Iberia, which cover a chronological range between 1050 cal BC and 25 cal AD. In addition, 142 present-day wheat seeds from 16 plots cultivated in 2014 and 2015 across this region were analysed. The results obtained for A Fontela and Castrovite were − 23.6‰ (between − 25.3 and − 21.4) and − 24.0‰ (between − 26.6 and − 21.8), respectively. Taking into account changes in the isotope composition of atmospheric carbon (δ13Catm), the Δ13C values were 17.5‰ (A Fontela) and 18.0‰ (Castrovite). In Castrovite, differences between storage facilities were detected, which could be related to the exploitation of different areas for cultivation, possibly indicating a family-based organization of agricultural production. Keywords 1st millennium BCE . NW Iberia . Carbon isotopes . Cereals . Agriculture
Introduction The origins of agriculture and the development of agricultural systems, particularly in the context of its impact on human societies, have long been a focus of archaeological research. The fields of carpology (Buxó 1997; Peña-Chocarro 1999; Rovira 2007), soil science (Gebhardt 1992), ethnology (Hillman 1981, 1984; Jones 1984) and chemical studies (Araus et al. 1997; Riehl et al. 2014; Fiorentino et al. 2015) have increasingly incorporated data from the archaeological record in order to respond to the questions related to the origin and expansion of agriculture and to explore the transformation of agricultural practices in past societies. In this sense, * Adrián Mora-González [email protected] 1
Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología, Universidad de Granada, Campus de Cartuja s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain
2
Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (IACT), Avda. de las Palmeras, 4, 18100, Armilla, Granada, Spain
3
Grupo de Estudos para a Prehistoria do NW Ibérico-Arqueoloxía, Antigüidade e Territorio (GEPN-AAT), Departamento de Historia, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Praza da Universidade 1, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
analyses of stable isotopes of carbon or nitrogen have provided great advances in the study of different topics (Araus et al. 1997; Heaton et al. 2009; Wallace et al. 2013; Fiorentino et al. 2015). Although these studies have mainly focussed on exploring issues such as irrigation (Araus et al. 1997; Wallace et al. 2013; Wallace et al. 2015; Mora-González et al. 2016; Mora-González et al. 2018), climate change (Aguilera et al. 2009; Aguilera et al. 20
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