Parallel worlds and mixed economies: multi-proxy analysis reveals complex subsistence systems at the dawn of early farming in the northeast Baltic
We’re thrilled to announce the publication of a recent scientific study titled “Parallel worlds and mixed economies: multi-proxy analysis reveals complex subsistence systems at the dawn of early farming in the northeast Baltic.”
Farming arrived in the NE Baltic with migrating Corded Ware cultures in the early 3rd millennium cal BCE, but here this new subsistence strategy relied on stockbreeding rather than crop cultivation. Early farmers in the NE Baltic were exploiting both domesticated and wild species, whilst the introduction of domesticates had little if any impact on local hunter-fisher-gatherer communities who remained true to their forager lifeways. There was no clear transition from foraging to farming in the 3rd millennium cal BCE NE Baltic, instead we see separated communities and parallel worlds of local foragers and incoming early farmers practicing mixed economy.
Read the whole article here: Parallel worlds and mixed economies: multi-proxy analysis reveals complex subsistence systems at the dawn of early farming in the northeast Baltic | Royal Society Open Science (royalsocietypublishing.org)