Establishment of a Greek Food Database for Palaeodiet Reconstruction: Case Study of Human and Fauna Remains from Neolithic to Late Bronze Age from Greece

Abstract

We review the stable isotopic data of recovered Greek bones from the Early Neolithic to the Late Bronze period in order to examine dietary changes over time. As an isotopic baseline we use the published fauna data of the periods. The analysis revealed a diet that included a significant proportion of foods based on C3 plants, and the bulk of the animal protein must have been provided by terrestrial mammals with a small but detectable proportion of marine protein for coastal and island populations. A more significant contribution of marine protein is observed for Bronze Age populations while the enrichment in both C and N isotopes is connected, for some areas, to the introduction of millet during the Bronze Age, and to freshwater consumption. An extensive database of Greek food sources is presented and compared to the fauna from the prehistoric periods (Early Neolithic to Late Bronze Age) of the literature. We propose that this database can be used in palaeodiet reconstruction studies.

Keywords

• stable isotopes
• palaeodiet
• carbon
• nitrogen
• bone collagen
• Bronze Age
• Neolithic
• Ancient Greece