Understanding the intersection of Rapid climate change and subsistence Practices: An isotopic perspective from a Mediterranean Bell Beaker case study

Abstract

Despite a long tradition of characterizing the Bell Beaker-associated human groups as mobile herders, there has been limited evidence for their economy and diet, both key defining factors for human lifeways. Bone nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen stable isotopes from a collective burial in Sardinia provide the first data on the diet of Mediterranean Bell Beaker groups, crucial as there is the presence of different domesticated species from the same context, thus enabling inferences on management practices. The data, evaluated in comparison with other groups, show high consumption of animal products and generalized, extensive livestock management, fitting the hypothesis of a relatively mobile lifestyle. Modeling of absolute dates and oxygen isotopic values suggest that the burials cover a period of fewer than two centuries, in which the group lived through a period of Rapid Climate Change, which overlaps with the 4.2 BP kya event previously recorded elsewhere in the Mediterranean, providing new elements for the understanding of demographic and cultural dynamics in the 3rd^-millennium cal BC and more broadly emphasizing the role of climate in interpreting socio-cultural change.