Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Cattle Management for Dairying in Scandinavia’s earliest Neolithic

Gron, K.J.; Montgomery, J.; Rowley-Conwy, P.

Cattle Management for Dairying in Scandinavia’s earliest Neolithic Thumbnail


Authors

Profile Image

Dr Kurt Gron k.j.gron@durham.ac.uk
Research Development Manager



Abstract

New evidence for cattle husbandry practices during the earliest period of the southern Scandinavian Neolithic indicates multiple birth seasons and dairying from its start. Sequential sampling of tooth enamel carbonate carbon and oxygen isotope ratio analyses and strontium isotopic provenancing indicate more than one season of birth in locally reared cattle at the earliest Neolithic Funnel Beaker (EN I TRB, 3950-3500 cal. B.C.) site of Almhov in Scania, Sweden. The main purpose for which cattle are manipulated to give birth in more than one season is to prolong lactation for the production of milk and dairy-based products. As this is a difficult, intensive, and time-consuming strategy, these data demonstrate complex farming practices by early Neolithic farmers. This result offers strong support for immigration-based explanations of agricultural origins in southern Scandinavia on the grounds that such a specialised skill set cannot represent the piecemeal incorporation of agricultural techniques into an existing hunter-gatherer-fisher economy.

Citation

Gron, K., Montgomery, J., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (2015). Cattle Management for Dairying in Scandinavia’s earliest Neolithic. PLoS ONE, 10(7), Article e0131267. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131267

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 8, 2015
Publication Date Jul 1, 2015
Deposit Date Jun 8, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal PLoS ONE
Publisher Public Library of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 10
Issue 7
Article Number e0131267
DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131267

Files

Published Journal Article (914 Kb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Copyright: © 2015 Gron et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.





You might also like



Downloadable Citations