Early Dalmatian farmers specialized in sheep husbandry

Abstract

The spread of farming in the central and western Mediterranean took place rapidly, linked to the Impressa Ware. The Impressa Ware originated somewhere in the southern Adriatic and spread westwards across the Mediterranean. These early farmers had an economy based on cereal agriculture and caprine husbandry, but there is still little information on how this agropastoral system functioned. This study aims to unravel the farming practices of the early Dalmatian farmers linked to the Impressa culture by using an integrated analysis, combining archaeozoology, palaeoproteomics and stable isotopes, applied to the faunal assemblages of Tinj-Podlivade and Crno Vrilo. The results show: (1) the composition of the flocks was overwhelmingly sheep; (2) sheep exploitation at both sites was similar, focusing on milk and meat; (3) sheep reproduction was concentrated at the beginning of winter, with no reproduction in autumn as in later sites in the western Mediterranean. We conclude that a common animal economy existed at both sites, which could be related to the mobility practiced by these early farming societies throughout the Mediterranean.