The impact of farming on prehistoric culinary practices throughout Northern Europe

How prehistoric farming became established in Northern Europe, a region that supported dense populations of hunter-gatherer-fishers, has concerned archaeologists for over a century. Through analysis of the organic residues recovered from over 1,000 vessels dating across the transition to farming, we found unexpected consistency in the use of aquatic foods at odds with prevailing narrative of large-scale demographic and economic change. We argue that the ability of farming groups to adapt to their environment by learning hunter-gatherer-fisher practices, combined with dairying, was key to their northerly expansion. We also provide evidence of dairy use by hunter-gatherers which we attribute to long-distance exchange with farmers, implying a much greater degree of interaction and cooperation than previously described.

To investigate changes in culinary practices associated with the arrival of farming, we analysed the organic residues of over 1,000 pottery vessels from hunter-gatherer-fisher and early agricultural sites across Northern Europe from the Lower Rhine Basin to the Northeastern Baltic. Here, pottery was widely used by hunter-gatherer-fishers prior to the introduction of domesticated animals and plants. Overall, there was surprising continuity in the way that hunter-gatherer-fishers and farmers used pottery. Both aquatic products and wild plants remained prevalent, a pattern repeated consistently across the study area. We argue that the rapid adaptation of farming communities to exploit coastal and lagoonal resources facilitated their northerly expansion, and in some cases, hunting, gathering, and fishing became the most dominant subsistence strategy. Nevertheless, dairy products frequently appear in pottery associated with the earliest farming groups often mixed with wild plants and fish. Interestingly, we also find compelling evidence of dairy products in hunter-gatherer-fisher Ertebølle pottery, which predates the arrival of domesticated animals. We propose that Ertebølle hunter-gatherer-fishers frequently acquired dairy products through exchange with adjacent farming communities prior to the transition. The continuity observed in pottery use across the transition to farming contrasts with the analysis of human remains which shows substantial demographic change through ancient DNA and, in some cases, a reduction in marine consumption through stable isotope analysis. We postulate that farmers acquired the knowledge and skills they needed to succeed from local hunter-gatherer-fishers but without substantial admixture.