Feeding the city: a comparative study of agricultural production in Bronze Age systems of Western Asia

The development of large urban societies in Western Asia during the Bronze Age has often been viewed as a pivotal transition in human history. As part of this narrative, however, agriculture and the nature of food production have frequently been relegated to the rural hinterland and divorced from daily life in the city. This research aims to explore the relationship between established early cities and the specific systems of agricultural production needed to sustain them, by assessing the nature of farming practice at two key Bronze Age sites. These two sites, Hattusha in Central Anatolia and Tell Brak in north-eastern Syria, were both major urban centres with large socially stratified populations and control of widespread hinterlands. Additionally, they provide data from two climatic and environmental zones, as well as two different cultural settings, providing the opportunity to investigate the nature of agriculture under a range of variable conditions. The archaeobotanical analysis of stored charred macro-remains assemblages from both sites has provided the opportunity to explore the relationship between crop choice, farming regime and urban society. Compositional, spatial and crop processing analysis has provided information regarding the origins of the material, as well as allowing the assessment of activities and depositional processes that may have formed the assemblages. Furthermore, the analysis of crop stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes combined with the functional ecology of arable weeds has allowed the identification of multiple crop management systems designed by each society. These results have revealed that both cities were reliant on low-input, low variance farming systems, but that within these systems a high level of agricultural variation was present. At Hattusha, correspondence analysis and crop stable isotope analysis have indicated that stored cereals were grown under a range of crop husbandry regimes. This included low-intensity systems characterized by low inputs of water and medium-low inputs of manure, and higher-intensity systems characterized by medium inputs of water and high inputs of manure. The existence of stored cereals grown under multiple regimes may suggest that the inhabitants of Hattusha were pooling resources from different areas within the wider rural hinterland. By contrast, crop stable isotope analysis and functional ecology analysis from Tell Brak have suggested that different species of cultivar were likely to have been grown in different areas of the landscape to maximise the potential arable yield of marginal environmental conditions. Overall, farming within both of these societies appears to have been a dynamic system that was adapted to overcome specific environmental and social challenges whilst also performing a key role in sustaining and supporting the urban population

Frestonska ograda z nasipi: Nova raziskava zgodnjega neolitika v vzhodni Angliji (Suffolk)

Current models view southeast England as where Neolithic lifeways were first introduced to Britain from continental Europe c. 4000 cal BC, however, there has been little work detailing this process in coastal East Anglia. In 2019, work at the Freston causewayed enclosure provided the first view of a major gathering space associated with semi-mobile farming communities of the Early Neolithic in the county of Suffolk and located on a major estuary close to the North Sea. Excavation produced a rich assemblage of worked flint and Mildenhall Ware pottery (potentially for feasting), plus evidence for the consumption of cereals and hazelnuts.S trenutnimi modeli vidimo jugovzhodno Anglijo kot prostor, kamor je ok. 4000 pr. n. št. prvič prispel neolitski način življenja v Veliko Britanijo iz kontinentalne Evrope. Do sedaj je bilo znanih le malo podatkov o tem, kako je ta proces potekal na priobalnem območju vzhodne Anglije. Leta 2019 so nam raziskave ograde z nasipi v Frestonu omogočile prvi vpogled na velik prostor za zbiranje, ki je vezan na delno mobilne poljedelske skupnosti iz zgodnjega neolitika v okrožju Suffolk in se nahaja ob glavnem izlivu blizu Severnega morja. Z izkopavanji smo pridobili bogat zbir obdelanih kamnitih orodij in lončenino tipa Mildenhall (morda uporabljena za pogostitve) ter dokaze o uživanju žit in lešnikov

'Cropping the margins': new evidence for urban agriculture at mid-3rd millennium BCE Tell Brak, Syria

Abstract The excavation of a large administrative building at the city of Tell Brak in northern Syria saw the recovery of a considerable quantity of charred cereals dated to the mid-3rd millennium BCE. This remarkable discovery provides a rare snapshot into the nature of agriculture in Upper Mesopotamia during the Early Bronze Age. The material has been studied using a combination of primary archaeobotanical analysis, crop stable isotope determinations and functional weed ecology to deliver new insights into cultivation strategies at Tell Brak, as well as contributing to the wider debate regarding trade and crop importation in this region. Specific crop regime choices also reveal how the farmers of Tell Brak were able to reduce the overall risk of crop failure by careful water management, a vitally important factor in this semi-arid region with potential implications for the analysis of other large-scale urban agro-economies in the Middle East and beyond. خلاصة أدت أعمال التنقيب في مبنى إداري كبير في مدينة تل براك في شمال سوريا إلى استخلاص كمية كبيرة من الحبوب المتفحمة التي يعود تاريخها إلى منتصف الألفية الثالثة قبل الميلاد. يقدم هذا الاكتشاف الرائع لمحة نادرة عن طبيعة الزراعة في بلاد ما بين النهرين العليا خلال العصر البرونزي المبكر. وقد تمت دراسة المواد المستخلصة باستخدام مزيج من التحليل النباتي الأولي (دراسة التفاعلات السابقة بين الإنسان والنبات من خلال استعادة وتحليل بقايا النباتات القديمة)، وتحديد النظائر المستقرة للمحاصيل، وبيئة الأعشاب الوظيفية لتقديم رؤى جديدة حول استراتيجيات الزراعة في تل براك وكذلك للمساهمة في النقاش الأوسع بشأن التجارة واستيراد المحاصيل في هذه المنطقة. تكشف اختيارات نظام المحاصيل المحددة أيضًا كيف تمكن مزارعو تل براك من تقليل المخاطر الإجمالية لفشل المحاصيل من خلال الإدارة الدقيقة للمياه، وهو عامل مهم للغاية في هذه المنطقة شبه القاحلة، مع ما يترتب على ذلك من آثار محتملة على الدراسة التحليلية للمناطق الحضرية الأخرى الواسعة النطاق للاقتصادات الزراعية في الشرق الأوسط وخارجه

The Freston Causewayed Enclosure

Current models view southeast England as where Neolithic lifeways were first introduced to Britain from continental Europe c. 4000 cal BC, however, there has been little work detailing this process in coastal East Anglia. In 2019, work at the Freston causewayed enclosure provided the first view of a major gathering space associated with semi-mobile farming communities of the Early Neolithic in the county of Suffolk and located on a major estuary close to the North Sea. Excavation produced a rich assemblage of worked flint and Mildenhall Ware pottery (potentially for feasting), plus evidence for the consumption of cereals and hazelnuts

Feeding the city: a comparative study of agricultural production in Bronze Age systems of Western Asia

The development of large urban societies in Western Asia during the Bronze Age has often been viewed as a pivotal transition in human history. As part of this narrative, however, agriculture and the nature of food production have frequently been relegated to the rural hinterland and divorced from daily life in the city. This research aims to explore the relationship between established early cities and the specific systems of agricultural production needed to sustain them, by assessing the nature of farming practice at two key Bronze Age sites. These two sites, Hattusha in Central Anatolia and Tell Brak in north-eastern Syria, were both major urban centres with large socially stratified populations and control of widespread hinterlands. Additionally, they provide data from two climatic and environmental zones, as well as two different cultural settings, providing the opportunity to investigate the nature of agriculture under a range of variable conditions. The archaeobotanical analysis of stored charred macro-remains assemblages from both sites has provided the opportunity to explore the relationship between crop choice, farming regime and urban society. Compositional, spatial and crop processing analysis has provided information regarding the origins of the material, as well as allowing the assessment of activities and depositional processes that may have formed the assemblages. Furthermore, the analysis of crop stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes combined with the functional ecology of arable weeds has allowed the identification of multiple crop management systems designed by each society. These results have revealed that both cities were reliant on low-input, low variance farming systems, but that within these systems a high level of agricultural variation was present. At Hattusha, correspondence analysis and crop stable isotope analysis have indicated that stored cereals were grown under a range of crop husbandry regimes. This included low-intensity systems characterized by low inputs of water and medium-low inputs of manure, and higher-intensity systems characterized by medium inputs of water and high inputs of manure. The existence of stored cereals grown under multiple regimes may suggest that the inhabitants of Hattusha were pooling resources from different areas within the wider rural hinterland. By contrast, crop stable isotope analysis and functional ecology analysis from Tell Brak have suggested that different species of cultivar were likely to have been grown in different areas of the landscape to maximise the potential arable yield of marginal environmental conditions. Overall, farming within both of these societies appears to have been a dynamic system that was adapted to overcome specific environmental and social challenges whilst also performing a key role in sustaining and supporting the urban population.</p

The agroecology of an early state: new results from Hattusha

The discovery of a large underground silo complex with spectacular intact grain stores at the Late Bronze Age Hittite capital of Hattusha in Turkey provides a unique snapshot of the mobilisation of crop production by the Hittite state. A combination of primary archaeobotanical analysis, crop stable isotope determinations and functional weed ecology reveals new insights into Hittite cultivation strategies, featuring a range of relatively low-input, extensive production regimes for hulled wheats and hulled barley. Taxation of extensively produced grain in the sixteenth century BC reveals how an ancient state sought to sustain itself, providing wider implications for the politics and ecology of territorially expansive states in Western Asia and beyond.</jats:p

The Freston Causewayed Enclosure

Current models view southeast England as where Neolithic lifeways were first introduced to Britain from continental Europe c. 4000 cal BC, however, there has been little work detailing this process in coastal East Anglia. In 2019, work at the Freston causewayed enclosure provided the first view of a major gathering space associated with semi-mobile farming communities of the Early Neolithic in the county of Suffolk and located on a major estuary close to the North Sea. Excavation produced a rich assemblage of worked flint and Mildenhall Ware pottery (potentially for feasting), plus evidence for the consumption of cereals and hazelnuts.</jats:p

Combining functional weed ecology and crop stable isotope ratios to identify cultivation intensity: a comparison of cereal production regimes in Haute Provence, France and Asturias, Spain

This investigation combines two independent methods of identifying crop growing conditions and husbandry practices-functional weed ecology and crop stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis-in order to assess their potential for inferring the intensity of past cereal production systems using archaeobotanical assemblages. Present-day organic cereal farming in Haute Provence, France features crop varieties adapted to low-nutrient soils managed through crop rotation, with little to no manuring. Weed quadrat survey of 60 crop field transects in this region revealed that floristic variation primarily reflects geographical differences. Functional ecological weed data clearly distinguish the Provence fields from those surveyed in a previous study of intensively managed spelt wheat in Asturias, north-western Spain: as expected, weed ecological data reflect higher soil fertility and disturbance in Asturias. Similarly, crop stable nitrogen isotope values distinguish between intensive manuring in Asturias and long-term cultivation with minimal manuring in Haute Provence. The new model of cereal cultivation intensity based on weed ecology and crop isotope values in Haute Provence and Asturias was tested through application to two other present-day regimes, successfully identifying a high-intensity regime in the Sighisoara region, Romania, and low-intensity production in Kastamonu, Turkey. Application of this new model to Neolithic archaeobotanical assemblages in central Europe suggests that early farming tended to be intensive, and likely incorporated manuring, but also exhibited considerable variation, providing a finer grained understanding of cultivation intensity than previously available.Natural Environment Research CouncilNERC Natural Environment Research Council [NE/E003761/1]; John Fell Fund, University of Oxford; European Research Council (AGRICURB project) [312785]We would like to thank the organic producers of Haute Provence for permission to access their fields and for cultivation histories; Sarah Parent of the chambre d'agriculture in Sault and Nathalie Charles of the parc naturel du Luberon for introductions to farmers; and Arne Saatkamp for floristic advice. We also thank farmers in the Sighisoara region, Romania, and in the Kastamonu province, Turkey, for permission to work in their fields and for agronomic information; Maria Hajnalova and Margareta Tengberg for advice and help in the Sighisoara region and Provence, respectively; and Muge Ergun and Laura Green for fieldwork assistance. We are also grateful to Stefanie Jacomet for access to unpublished data from Mythenschloss. We thank Otto Brinkkemper and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on the manuscript. Fieldwork in Asturias, Transylvania and Kastamonu and associated labwork were funded by Natural Environment Research Council (NE/E003761/1, PI Bogaard) and the John Fell Fund, University of Oxford. Fieldwork in Haute Provence in 2013 and associated labwork were supported by the European Research Council (AGRICURB project, Grant no. 312785, PI Bogaard)