Dental calculus reveals Mesolithic foragers in the Balkans consumed domesticated plant foods

Significance

The starch record entrapped in dental calculus of Mesolithic human teeth from the site of Vlasac in the central Balkans provides direct evidence that complex Late Mesolithic foragers of this region consumed domesticated cereal grains. Our results challenge the established view of the Neolithization in Europe that domestic cereals were introduced to the Balkans around ∼6200 calibrated (cal.) BC as a part of a “package” that also included domesticated animals and artifacts, which accompanied the arrival of Neolithic communities. We infer that Neolithic domesticated plants were transmitted independently from the rest of Neolithic novelties from ∼6600 cal. BC onwards, reaching inland foragers deep in the Balkan hinterland through established social networks that linked forager and farmer groups.

Abstract

Researchers agree that domesticated plants were introduced into southeast Europe from southwest Asia as a part of a Neolithic “package,” which included domesticated animals and artifacts typical of farming communities. It is commonly believed that this package reached inland areas of the Balkans by ∼6200 calibrated (cal.) BC or later. Our analysis of the starch record entrapped in dental calculus of Mesolithic human teeth at the site of Vlasac in the Danube Gorges of the central Balkans provides direct evidence that already by ∼6600 cal. BC, if not earlier, Late Mesolithic foragers of this region consumed domestic cereals, such as Triticum monococcum , Triticum dicoccum , and Hordeum distichon , which were also the main crops found among Early Neolithic communities of southeast Europe. We infer that “exotic” Neolithic domesticated plants were introduced to southern Europe independently almost half a millennium earlier than previously thought, through networks that enabled exchanges between inland Mesolithic foragers and early farming groups found along the Aegean coast of Turkey.