Farming systems and land use from Neolithic to 1800 AD in their mutual interactions with population size

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Zimmermann
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: from 2009 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 120626474

This project aims at modelling farming systems from selected periods with well-known population densities between the Neolithic and the transition to the Industrial Revolution. The scenarios are based on archaeological as well as historical observations and on archaeobotanical as well as archaeozoological data. The models for early Neolithic in Central Europe and the time of 1800 AD are completed now with a text ready for publication. Compared with the last report the modules -energy demand-, -collected plants-, and -location of bandkeramic fields- were added and the database concerning animal husbandry could be enhanced. In addition, data for the next two target time slices had to be recorded, for the Iron Age as well as the Roman Empire. Average energy demand (kcal / person / day) was derived by evaluation of life tables considering age and sex within populations from all periods considered by the project (application Abb. 1). Within the module -collected plants-, first a balance sheet of nutrients, vitamins and minerals included in the foodstuffs of early Neolithic covering the energy demand from plants and animals was calculated. It is possible to cover the remaining deficits by berries and hazel nuts quite accurately for the population density of this time according to yields for these plants compiled by A. S. Keene 1981 for the North American woodland. Only a small shortage of salt remains (0,5g/P/day). The module -location of bandkeramic fields- is based on calculations of space needed to produce the necessary foodstuffs, differentiated concerning different densities within the Bandkeramik. An earlier published version aiming at minimal space is compared with a new scenario of maximal field size with fallows. The essential differences are compiled in Tab. 1 and visualized in Abb. 4 and 5. Even if 20% of energy demand are delivered by animal products only less than 70% of the space available is used. Assuming that fallows were attractive for animals and their dung fertilises the soil, the amount of nitrogen reaches only a magnitude of 5% of the allowance for organic farming today. In the early Neolithic only 0,2% of the space were used for fields, whereas at 1800 AD more the 40% of the space in the Rhineland is fields (report chapter 4.3, Abb. 54).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Andreas Dix