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Meat for Warriors - The diet of Celtic individuals from the Iron Age – With Dr Sandra Lösch (S01E04)
88 Plays3 years ago
As the title already indicates, in this episode we examine the diet of “Celtic warriors”. First, I present the late Iron Age cemetery of Münsingen and highlight why this site from Switzerland became such an important reverence point for Celtic archaeology: because based on the evolution of the characteristics of the fibulae grave goods a so-called typo-chronology could be established. Then we talk with Dr. Sandra Lösch, who was the supervisor of a recent research project on the diet of these late Iron Age individuals.
Reverences:
· Moghaddam et al. (2016), A bioarchaeological approach to the Iron Age in Switzerland: stable isotope analyses (δ13C, δ15N, δ34S) of human remains
· Moghaddam et al. (2016), Zur Ernährung und Sozialstratigraphie der Kelten aus Münsingen-Rain
· Moghaddam et al. (2014), Social stratigraphy in Late Iron Age Switzerland: stable carbon, nitrogen and sulphur isotope analysis of human remains from Münsingen
· Martin-Kilchner (1973), Zur Tracht- und Beigabensitte im keltischen Gräberfeld von Münsingen-Rain
· Hodson (1968), The La Tène Cemetery at Münsingen-Rain
Links: https://23minarch.com
Support: https://www.patreon.com/23minarch
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Transcript
Introduction to Celtic Warriors' Diet
00:00:08
Speaker
Meet for Warriors, the diet of Celtic individuals from the Iron Age.
Who Were the Celts and Warriors?
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome back to another edition of 23-Minute Archaeology with me, Noah. As the title already indicates, today we examine the diet of, quote, Celtic warriors.
00:00:31
Speaker
And I know that both of these terms can be ambiguous or even problematic and should always be clearly defined. As for the likely origin of the denomination, ancient Greek authors in the 5th century BC named the people living between the Danube River and southern France quote, Keltoi.
00:00:55
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but they were never one ethnic group of people, rather different communities or tribes with different cultural identities that could share some similarities, for example in their material culture.
Significance of Munzingen Cemetery
00:01:13
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And as for warriors, archaeologically speaking, of course, just because one is buried with weapons doesn't automatically mean that they were a warrior.
00:01:25
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But with those reservations quickly addressed, I am very happy to present to you the late Iron Age cemetery of Munzingen. I want to highlight why this site from Switzerland became such an important reference point for Celtic archaeology.
00:01:45
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Then we talk with my friend Dr.
Dr. Sandra Lörsch on Celtic Diet
00:01:48
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Sandra Lörsch, who was the supervisor of a recent research project on the diet of these late Iron Age individuals. Here's already an extract of our conversation.
00:02:01
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What was really, really exciting about our data was that the different stable isotope nitrogen values between males and females speak for somehow an in equal access to animal proteins, but really the males with the weapons, what you already called warriors, showed significant higher nitrogen values.
What is Stable Isotope Analysis?
00:02:45
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What is your diet? Are you a vegan or eat meat every meal? You don't need to answer because this information is actually stored in your bones and archaeologists or physical anthropologists can find it out even thousands of years after your death.
00:03:08
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But how?
Traditional vs. Modern Diet Study Methods
00:03:09
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In this episode we will talk about stable isotope analysis. We will not go deep into the chemistry and all, rather my aim is to highlight the amazing insights this analysis can give us about dietary habits of people from the past.
00:03:30
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especially since until this method was established archaeologists could mostly only get indirect information on the diet of prehistoric societies from animal bones with cut marks or burned botanic remains in cooking pots for example.
00:03:52
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And how does stable isotope analysis actually work? In short, isotopes are different forms of an element with the same chemical properties but which differ in the number of neutrons. They are stable, meaning they don't decay over time.
00:04:15
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During our lifetime, such isotopes, for example from the food we eat, are being incorporated into our body tissues, meaning they are stored in the collagen which is a main component of the bones.
Isotope Analysis and Social Insights
00:04:32
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With a bone sample of just 1 gram, different chemical elements of isotopes can be measured with a mass spectrometer. The ratio in which these elements occur varies between substances and can provide information on the type of diet an individual consumed.
00:04:55
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For example, the ratio of carbon isotopes provides information about plant proteins in the diet. We can even distinguish between certain types of plants. For example, so-called C3 plants like wheat and barley or C4 plants like millet.
00:05:19
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On the other hand, nitrogen isotope ratios allow to determine the share of animal proteins like meat or dairy products in the diet. And the assumption is that higher nitrogen levels
00:05:36
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can be an indicator for higher social status of an individual, since animal protein generally requires more effort or investment to obtain than plant protein.
00:05:52
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And finally, sulfur isotopes can be used to detect the intake of fresh water and seafood like fish or shellfish, since terrestrial animals have much lower sulfur isotope ratios.
00:06:09
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and therefore it can also provide information on possible migration of people, for example from coastal regions to the interior with no access to seafood.
00:06:24
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With that I hope I was able to break down the basics about stable isotope analysis in a somewhat understandable way. But you see, human bones represent a time capsule with which a variety of information can be gained from a long-gone individual.
Celtic Burial Practices and Grave Goods
00:06:48
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And now let me give you an overview of why a quote, Celtic graveyard from Switzerland became such an important reference site for late Iron Age archaeology in all of Central Europe.
00:07:05
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In 1904 a vast burial site was discovered during gravel mining in a small town called Munzingen north of the Alps in western central Switzerland and just about six kilometers of where I grew up.
00:07:24
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Over 220 graves were excavated by 1906. They were generally inhumations with the body being placed in a wooden coffin or simple pits.
00:07:40
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The use of the burial site is dated between around 420 to 240 BC. As a chronological reference point, I can again mention Alexander the Great, who lived and died during the time of use of this graveyard, while a certain Gaius Julius Caesar wouldn't be born for another 140 years.
00:08:08
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Common objects found in male graves were weapons like swords, sometimes accompanied by a land and or shield. Animal bones exclusively found in male burials most probably signifying offerings of meat also give hints about diet preferences.
00:08:33
Speaker
Usually a pair of brooches were found in the right shoulder region and were probably to close a cloak-like garment. These brooches are called fibula or fibula in singular and are the main reason why this site is so important, but we will come back to that later.
00:08:58
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The grave goods of the women illustrate well the changing of preferences or fashion, if you will, over time. In the earliest graves, around 400 BC, the women were buried wearing a simple bronze neck ring. The custom or style changed during the fourth century and sets of four bronze leg rings were increasingly favored.
00:09:28
Speaker
From 250 BC onwards, glass arm rings and bronze belt chains appeared and became more and more popular. Multiple of these fibulere brooches were often found in the upper chest region. They probably held together a tube-like garment called peplos, typically worn by, quote, Celtic women.
00:09:56
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But we need to keep in mind that most of the organic grave goods, like these garments, were not preserved in the soil. So archaeologists have to work with the limited available information of the past.
00:10:15
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The burials from this excavated graveyard in Munsingen probably represented only a small portion of the local society, a social upper class like, quote, noble families due to the value of the grave goods.
Fibulae and Archaeological Dating
00:10:35
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For example, certain jewelry made of gold or coral stones traded over hundreds of kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea. Their prosperity was probably based on agriculture and possibly to a lesser extent on transit and trade across the Alps.
00:10:59
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The burial site must have been part of an important nearby settlement. Its location however remains unclear to this day.
00:11:11
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The long and continuous use of the burial site of Minsingen made it possible to follow the stylistic development of the before mentioned fibula over a period of nearly 200 years. To clarify, a fibula is like a brooch or ancient safety pin and was used to fasten garments.
00:11:38
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They came in a variety of shapes and decorations which changed every couple of decades, like our fashion style for example. This was used by archaeologists to create a so-called typo chronology.
00:11:57
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A typochronology is based on the evolution of the characteristics, like shape or decoration of objects, such as ceramics, which is important in Neolithic and Roman archaeology, or in our case of brooches or fibule.
00:12:20
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Maybe an example from nowadays could be cell phones. Look at the evolution on the design of the first iPhone from 14 years ago to the version we have now.
00:12:35
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If people would get their phones as grave goods, who knows, maybe that will become a thing, future archaeologists could reconstruct the evolution of this item and therefore date the buried individual. This with a so-called terminus postquem, meaning that the individual must have died after, let's say, iPhone 4 was released.
00:13:03
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though we can't exactly know how long the item was in use or circulation.
00:13:11
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The same principle was used to establish the typo chronology for the late Iron Age fibule. And so, Munzingen became a reference site for archaeologists trying to date isolated Celtic graves and finds from France to Romania and from central Germany to northern Italy.
Dietary Insights from Isotope Analysis
00:13:36
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And now we come to the interesting results of the recent stable isotope analysis of this burial site. From the original 220 graves, only 77 human skulls are still preserved that could be sampled for the dietary research.
00:13:58
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and between 2014 and 2016 it was possible to conduct stable isotope analysis for 63 of those late Iron Age individuals. They consist of 27 males, 29 females and 7 infants.
00:14:18
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The results show that these Celtic individuals mainly survived on a diet of wheat and barley. These cereals were probably not only consumed as solid food, as evidence of beer brewing can be found as far back as the Neolithic Stone Age, and Roman authors tell us that the Celts even had different kinds of beer.
00:14:45
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Famous was, for example, a type of barley beer that was called korma. And even the Latin word for beer itself, carvesia, has probably Celtic origin.
00:15:00
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Over the long occupation period of the burial site in Munsingen, no significant changes in the nitrogen levels could be found, which means that the amount of animal protein in the diet remained relatively the same for some 200 years.
00:15:21
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Also, no significant differences between the age classes could be observed, signifying that a young adult ate the same diet as an old man.
00:15:35
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The nitrogen levels, however, show differences between the sexes, with males having significantly higher values than females, which leads us to the suggestion that males consumed more animal protein. It gets really interesting if we link the results from the stable isotope analysis with archaeological data.
00:16:02
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The burials varied in the aspect of grave goods. Some individuals were given especially valuable objects, for example golden fingerings, and others received no grave goods at all.
00:16:18
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One would suggest that the first group of individuals was in a privileged position and had therefore access to more animal protein. But again, no significant differences between the individuals with and those without these golden, imported or otherwise deemed valuable grave goods were obtained.
00:16:43
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And now to the reason why I named this episode Meet for Warriors, because as mentioned, weapons were only given to some adult males, and especially swords are usually considered to be prestige grave goods, a symbol for a higher social status.
00:17:08
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This opinion was confirmed with the results from the stable isotope analysis. The nitrogen values are significantly higher in the males buried with weapons than those without. These results indicate an increased access to animal protein for these armed males, indicating higher social status for the late Iron Age quote, warrior.
Collagen and Social Roles in Diet
00:17:38
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But, of course, these results offer lots of aspects for discussions and so we come to my conversation with Dr. Sandra Loesch, who supervised the stable isotope analysis of these individuals.
00:18:04
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Hello, Sandra, and thank you very much for sitting down with me. Maybe I was explaining the basics of stable isotope analysis, but maybe you could help to clarify with this method. We can get a picture about an individual's diet over a long timeframe and not what they ate the week before their death, for example. Am I right?
00:18:32
Speaker
Hello, Noah. Yes, indeed. The several collagen turnover varies with regard to the skeletal element. In average, we speak about a few years. For example, the skull has turnover rates of about 10 years.
00:18:49
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This is in contrast to hair for example because hair grows approximately one centimeter per month. If we investigate stable isotope ratios from hair close to the scalp we detect isotopic signals from the last months prior to the death of the individual.
00:19:10
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By this we also might see changes in nutrition or mobility prior to the death of an individual or prior to several months before the death. This is one reason why research on mummies is quite important as well because usually they have preserved hair.
00:19:30
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But in contrast to this, we are dealing with skeletal burials in Europe, and this is for sure also true for Switzerland. And to solve this challenge about saying something about different times before the death, innovative approaches in science investigate several skeletal elements with different turnover rates in collagen.
00:19:55
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For some skeletal elements they are published turnover rates in the literature but this topic is quite complex and it depends also on various factors such as age of an individual, development and rebuilding of bones.
00:20:11
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In general we see higher turnover rates in bones which are exposed to physical activity or force I would say. Also analysis of teeth are very suitable for isotopic research, for example an animal which is formed in particular periods of the childhood.
00:20:30
Speaker
By performing these investigations, one can get detailed pictures of individuals' lives with information about changes in their diet and mobility or even migration.
00:20:44
Speaker
Regarding sample selection, as I understood, good collagen preservation in the bones is key to stable isotope analysis. How do you assess this? Can you already predict the probable condition of the collagen preservation from an individual you just excavated?
00:21:06
Speaker
We access the collagen quality via mass spectrometry analysis. After the measurement process, we receive data about the general percentage of particular elements we are interested in. There are a lot of other quality criteria for the analysis of stabilized operations deriving from collagen.
00:21:31
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Another important benchmark is the molar ratio of carbon and nitrogen. It should be between 2.9 and 3.6.
00:21:41
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If our samples do not fulfill these mentioned quality criteria, they are not considered for any further interpretation. And coming to your second question, can you already predict the probable condition of the collagen preservation from an individual you just excavated?
00:22:03
Speaker
I cannot answer this properly. I would say yes and no. Yes, if the human remains are already very poor, preserved at the excavation site, or if you are working with material from regions with very dry and hot climate, the chances that the bone color chain is degraded, that means altered due to taphonomy, these changes are increasing.
00:22:33
Speaker
The same is true also for very humid regions for example. But this is not always true I would say. We sometimes witness surprises in both ways, pleasant and unpleasant. In general I would always recommend give it a try even if you do not have high hopes.
00:22:53
Speaker
And in addition, our personal experience is that if you freeze the bone samples directly after the excavation, the chances of getting good collagen are much increased. And in general, our experience is as well that human remains from old excavations or remains which have been in deep holes for longer times are not the best to do stable isotope or any biological research in general.
00:23:23
Speaker
Coming to the results from the stable isotope analysis of the late Iron Age individuals from Munsingen, just generally, were you surprised to see the difference in nitrogen levels of males and females?
00:23:38
Speaker
I'm not sure if I was surprised, because I didn't have any expectations, but maybe I was neutral. We see these differences in nitrogen in the sexes, we do not see them in neolithic times, we do not see them
00:24:01
Speaker
until now in the Roman times and this was the first research of my department where we did see significant results in the Iron Age of Munsingen. And what possible reasons do you see for this apparent sex or gender restriction in the access to animal protein?
00:24:26
Speaker
One of the reasons could be a very easy one, for example, something like that women in general do not like to eat so much meat as males do. So it could be something like a personal preferences.
00:24:42
Speaker
I can see this for example in my friends community as well that females do not prefer to eat so much meat like the males do but for example I like to eat very much meat and I prefer meat in any case to vegetables for example so
00:25:03
Speaker
I cannot understand these personal reasons, but it could have been, and we have to consider this, that it's just the personal preferences of the Munsingen group. But another reason which we should not underestimate is that animal proteins, in general, are much more costly in production. So if a community domesticates animals, they have to put a lot of energy
00:25:31
Speaker
in these foods and that means that it's a high costly nutrition component and it could be just individuals who have been very special for the community and in the case of the Iron Age community of Munsingin it could have been that the warriors had such an exceptional position.
00:25:58
Speaker
I called this episode Meet for Warriors because men buried with weapons showed even higher nitrogen values than men buried without them. This result leads to the suggestion that these males might have played a special role in the Iron Age society, as you also just suggested, representing a higher social rank.
00:26:21
Speaker
that was accompanied by better access to animal protein.
Future Topics Preview
00:26:26
Speaker
So would you share this possible interpretation?
00:26:31
Speaker
What was really, really exciting about our data was that the different stable isotope nitrogen values between males and females speak for somehow an in equal access to animal proteins, but really the males with the weapons, what you already called warriors, showed significant higher nitrogen values.
00:26:57
Speaker
which means that they must have had a diet with much more animal proteins than the rest of the population and in particular and also the females and this might lead to the hypothesis that these men have been very important for the society and might have been very important warriors though they got
00:27:26
Speaker
the most costly nutritional resource they got within this community.
00:27:40
Speaker
Alright, that was it for this episode on the diet of late Iron Age individuals from Munzingen. And remember, on Instagram you'll find pictures of these amazing fibule or how the Celtic warriors looked like.
00:27:59
Speaker
I hope I was able to explain the basics of stable isotope analysis because for the next episodes we will focus on Roman gladiators and try to answer if they really were mostly vegan. And with that I want to thank Dr. Sandra Loesch for the interesting conversation and my friends from the band Crying Vessel for the music.