The adoption of a new crop reshaped land use in Bronze Age Europe
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Broomcorn millet field in Inner Mongolia, the region where the crop was first domesticated. Photo by Giedrė Motuzaitė Matuzevičiūtė.
view moreCredit: Photo by Giedrė Motuzaitė Matuzevičiūtė.
A gradual adoption
A multi-proxy approach combining carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and strontium isotope analyses from human remains with radiocarbon dating, palaeoproteomic sex determination, archaeological and anthropological records, and previously published genetic data was applied. The researchers were able to establish whether the populations that began consuming millet were local, to reconstruct the life stages at which this crop became available to individuals, and to identify the cultural profiles and biological sex of millet consumers. Each proxy answers a different question: carbon and nitrogen isotopes reflect a person's average diet over years, while oxygen and strontium isotopes reflect the geology and hydrology of the area where their food came from during tissue formation. The researchers discovered that millet became part of the diet of Bronze Age communities in south-eastern Poland around 1590 BCE – more than a century earlier than previously estimated – highlighting that millet was consumed gradually by a handful of individuals before it became a major staple.
Dietary changes both between communities and within individual lifetimes were identified by analysing tissues formed at different life stages, showing that several early millet consumers had grown up on diets dominated by traditional crops such as wheat and barley before incorporating millet later in life. This enabled the team to pinpoint the period at which the new crop entered existing foodways, and thus to gain the first precise insights into this gradual process across Bronze Age communities of Central Europe.
New land-use opportunities
Millet, however, was not eaten by everyone but only by part of the population. “And the different strontium isotope compositions in the skeletal tissues of millet consumers versus non-consumers likely point to the use of distinct geological zones within the same territory, rather than to different places of birth”, explains co-author Prof Snoeck from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). Because millet grows rapidly and tolerates relatively dry conditions and poor soils, its cultivation allowed Bronze Age communities to exploit areas that were less suitable for traditional cereals. “In response to increasing food demand and potential changes in climatic conditions, Bronze Age societies adopted a new resilient staple crop to optimise the use of previously marginal parts of their environment and improve food security”, explains lead author Dr Depaermentier from Vilnius University (Lithuania).
Both consumers and non-consumers moreover shared broadly similar archaeological and genetic backgrounds, and the earliest consumers exhibited strontium isotope signatures compatible with local origins. The data therefore provide little support for a simple population-migration-based explanation. Instead, this study suggests that the cultivation of this new crop was associated with changes in how communities used the landscape, enabling cultivation to expand into a broader range of environmental settings.
Across social boundaries
The findings also highlight that “millet consumption was not restricted to a particular sex, age group or social status”, says co-author Prof Makarowicz from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland). Together with the strontium isotope evidence, this demonstrates that access to particular parts of the landscape rather than social identity was the determining factor shaping the adoption of this new crop within the society. “The study is the first to link such division of the landscape to the cultivation of a new summer crop, and to the exploitation of areas that had previously seen little agricultural use”, summarises senior author Prof Motuzaitė Matuzevičiūtė from Vilnius University (Lithuania), who is also a PI of the ERC-CoG MILWAYS project. Understanding these processes can contribute to current discussions about crop diversification and adaptation to changing environmental conditions.
Two Bronze Age burials (feature 748) at Pielgrzymowice, Poland, including, on the left, the earliest known millet consumer in Central Europe (photo by A. Lasota-Kuś).
Credit
Photo by A. Lasota-Kuś.
Journal
Science Advances
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Multi-proxy bioarchaeological analyses reveal subsistence shift in Bronze Age Central Europe
Article Publication Date
9-Sep-2026
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