Bronze Age agricultural changes in the Czech Republic

0521168 - ARÚ 2020 DE eng A - Abstract
Pokorná, Adéla - Kočár, Petr - Šálková, T.
Bronze Age agricultural changes in the Czech Republic.
Kiel, 2019.
[Millet and what else? The wider context of the adoption of millet cultivation in Europe. 27.11.2019-28.11.2019, Kiel]
Institutional support: RVO:67985912
Keywords : millet * Bronze Age * agricultural changes * archaeobotany
OECD category: Archaeology
https://www.sfb1266.uni-kiel.de/de/veranstaltungen/tagungen-workshops/pokorna.pdf

A substantial change of agricultural practices took place during the Bronze Age in the Czech Republic area. In the Early Bronze Age, the composition of crops was still rather similar to the Neolithic (mainly the emmer wheat with admixture of barley and einkorn). On the contrary, during the Late to Final Bronze Age, the field crops were much more diversified (mainly emmer, barley and broomcorn millet). Several new crops appeared in this period (Panicum miliaceum, Setaria viridis, and Vicia faba). Unfortunately, there is a gap in our data during the Middle Bronze Age (Tumulus culture) with a limited number of settlement sites. Our aim is to trace beginning as well as character of the agricultural changes mentioned above, emphasizing the broomcorn millet introduction. We use the Archaeobotanical Database of the Czech Republic (CZAD) to compare different geographical parts of the country, focusing not only on crops but also on field weeds. The earliest radiocarbon dated evidence of P. miliaceum in the Czech Republic comes from a site Zahájí in northwest Bohemia dated to the Middle Bronze Age (1461–1383 B.C.), with a layer of uncharred P. miliaceum discovered in a bog core sample. During the prehistory, P. miliaceum had a single distinct maximum occurrence in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age. According to the spatial analysis provided at a Knovíz culture settlement site (Late Bronze Age) in Hostivař, it looks like P. milliaceum macro remains manifested a different pattern compared to other cereals (settlement layers x fillings of features) caused probably by different processing of these crops.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0306147