Did ancient people practice equality? Stereotypes might suggest otherwise, but the remains of one Neolithic society reveal evidence that men and women, locals and foreigners, were equal at least when it came to one important aspect of life: food.
The Neolithic period marked the beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry around 6,000 years ago. In what is now the Swiss canton of Valais, people ate the same type and amount of food, regardless of gender or place of origin. Researchers led by Deborah Roessle-Christ from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) found this out by analyzing isotopes in the bones and teeth of adults buried in what is now known as the Barmaze cemetery. Based on the 49 individuals studied, the people at the Barmaze site enjoyed an equal diet.
“Unlike other similar studies of Neolithic burials, the Barmazians appear to have derived protein resources from similar environments, and both male and female adults had access to the same resources,” the researchers wrote in their recently published study. Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports.
To my very core
To determine whether the diets of the people buried at Barmaz were equitable, Roslet-Christo and her team needed to look at certain isotopes in the bones and others in the teeth—some types of bone regenerate and others don’t—which can be linked to where someone was born and what they ate later in life.
By analysing the strontium isotopes in tooth enamel, we were able to distinguish whether an individual was local or foreign. Tooth enamel forms when we are young and does not regenerate itself, so the isotopes that get into the enamel through the food we eat indicate where that food came from. This can be used to distinguish whether an individual was born somewhere or whether they migrated later in life. Once we know the strontium ratio in a particular location, we can compare it to the ratio in tooth enamel to determine whether the tooth’s owner is from that area.
“Strontium in tooth enamel indicates whether someone was born in a particular place or migrated to a particular place during childhood, while different isotopes of carbon, nitrogen and sulfur from food allowed the team to tell what and how much people ate in the last few years of their lives. Bones such as the upper arm bone (the best-preserved bone in most people) are constantly being regenerated with new material, meaning the most recently deposited bone tissue was formed just before death.”
Fun for everyone
The Barmaze cemetery, near the Rhône River Valley in the Swiss Alps, is located in an area that was once covered by deciduous forest but is now covered by villages and farmland. Most of the Barmaze people are thought to be local. Strontium isotopes found in their teeth suggest that only a few people lived in the area during the first few years of life when enamel was forming, but it is difficult to determine whether other people moved into the area later.
Analysis of the Barmaz diet revealed that it was high in animal protein, supplemented with plant foods such as peas and barley. The isotopes analyzed were mainly from young goats and pigs. High concentrations of certain carbon and nitrogen isotopes were found in the bones, leading the researchers to speculate that these young animals may not have even been weaned yet. This means that this farming society was willing to reduce meat harvests in order to improve the quality of their meat.
Roslet-Kristo’s most important finding was that he found the same median fractions of certain carbon, nitrogen and sulfur isotopes in the bones of both men and women. It didn’t matter whether these people were local or foreign. The values of these isotopes were also the same in people with different strontium isotope contents in their tooth enamel. It seems that all adults ate the same foods in the same amounts, which was not necessarily the case in Neolithic societies.
“Those buried at Barmaz appear to have enjoyed equal opportunities in life, whether male or female, describing a society that reflected egalitarianism,” the team wrote in the paper.
This society was egalitarian in other ways too. The dead were buried in the same way, with mostly the same materials, regardless of gender or whether they were local or foreign. Such an egalitarian society is not often associated with Neolithic people, but it shows that some of our ancestors believed that no one should be left behind. They may have been a lot more like us than we realise.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2004. DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2024.104585
