With the aid of some high - technical school genius , some 8,000 - yr - onetime remnant inside a bunch of break pottery are being used by archaeologists to work out what Neolithic Europeans had for dinner party – and it ’s not quite what they expect .
Reporting in theProceedings of the Royal Society B , archaeologists led by the University of Bristol in the UK studied an orbit called the Iron Gates , establish along the Danube River on the border between current - mean solar day Romania and Serbia . This is a select situation for research as it was home to both Late Mesolithic forager and the first Neolithic cultures , and other factory farm was used there .
Typically , when refinement move off from foraging and hunting , they bug out to eat piles of meat and dairy . However , that ’s not what the passel demonstrate . Instead , this particular group of people in southeast Europe seem to have been loyal fish - eaters , just as they in all probability were beforethe advent of agriculture .
The capacity of their dieting was chance upon by canvas organic residue on over 200 pottery fragment regain in the surface area . Using a technique known as gas chromatography - mass spectrometry , the researchers were capable to mold the indistinguishability of the fatty acids in the residuum and then knead out which food they came from .
“ The findings reveal that the bulk of Neolithic skunk analysed here were being used for serve fish or other aquatic resources , ” Dr Lucy Cramp , from the University of Bristol ’s Department of Anthropology and Archaeology , said in astatement .
" This is a significant contrast with an early study showing the same case of pottery in the beleaguer region was being used for kine , sheep or goat meat and dairy farm mathematical product .
" It is also completely dissimilar to nearly all other assemblages of Neolithic farmer - case clayware antecedently analysed from across Europe ( nearly 1,000 balance ) which also show predominantly terrestrial- based resources being prepared in preparation good deal ( cattle / sheep / Capricorn the Goat , mayhap also deer ) , even from emplacement near major rivers or the seashore . "
Despite these the great unwashed being able to tame plants and beast , it appears they were still big on corrode Pisces . However , this is passably strange because agribusiness is normally a more effective and true method of feeding a community of thirsty mouths . Although the researchers are not sure why this population stuck totheir funny diet , they speculate that it ’s most likely due to the Danube River ’s overpoweringly Brobdingnagian sturgeon , which migrate up the river towards the Black Sea .
