Neolithic cultivation of tetraploid free threshing wheat in Denmark and Northern Germany: implications for crop diversity and societal dynamics of the Funnel Beaker Culture

• DOI: 10.1007/s00334-014-0440-8
• Publication Date: 2014-02-22T14:19:02Z
• Authors: Wiebke Kirleis; Elske Fischer
• Keywords: Beaker; Threshing; Funnel

For the first time, rachis fragments of tetraploid free threshing wheat were discovered for the Early Neolithic of the North European Plain, proving its cultivation by farmers of the Neolithic Funnel Beaker North group. A compilation of finds of free threshing wheat for Northern Europe based on a temporal resolution of Funnel Beaker sub-periods shows the importance of free threshing wheat—independent of genomic constitution—in the Early Neolithic Funnel Beaker crop assemblage. Based on this new evidence, we assume that the crop assemblages of the first farmers on the North European Plain consisted of three main cereals: emmer, barley and free threshing wheat. Both the new finds and the compilation of free threshing wheat finds support the scenario of a chronological separation of different agricultural systems that were implemented within different Funnel Beaker phases. Furthermore, the evidence for tetraploid free threshing wheat shows that the tradition of early Funnel Beaker groups is linked to southwestern agricultural developments, for example, of the Michelsberg group.