The bioarchaeological investigation of the Bronze Age cemetery of Tiszafüred-Majoroshalom has shed new mild on an vital interval in Central European historical past.
The study has been published within the journal Scientific Reports.
An worldwide analysis workforce led by Tamás Hajdu, affiliate professor on the Department of Anthropology at ELTE and Claudio Cavazzuti, senior assistant professor on the University of Bologna, has proven that, round 1500 BC, radical modifications occurred in individuals’s lives: they ate and lived in another way, and the social system was additionally reorganized.
The multidisciplinary analysis was primarily based on the Bronze Age cemetery excavated at Tiszafüred-Majoroshalom, which was used each within the Middle Bronze Age (Füzesabony tradition) and within the Late Bronze Age (Tumulus tradition). These finds allowed the researchers to check the subsistence methods earlier than and after the change of period.
The analysis workforce sought to reply whether or not the unfold of the Tumulus tradition meant the arrival of latest teams, or whether or not the autochthonous individuals continued their lives, and solely the fabric tradition modified. In addition, additionally they examined whether or not the archaeologically noticed settlement modifications round 1500 BC point out a change in life-style: whether or not individuals started to observe a life-style involving primarily animal husbandry and frequent migration as a substitute of settled farming.
The most vital outcomes of the analysis:
Diet modified: According to nitrogen steady isotope research, individuals’s meals consumption was way more numerous in the course of the Middle Bronze Age, and variations inside society have been additionally extra evident of their food regimen—particularly in entry to animal proteins. This distinction decreased within the Late Bronze Age, and the food regimen grew to become extra uniform however poorer.
Broomcorn millet was launched: According to carbon isotope analyses, the consumption of millet, a plant that may be grown rapidly and has a excessive vitality content material, started originally of the Late Bronze Age. The information from the Tiszafüred Bronze Age cemetery point out the earliest identified consumption of millet in Europe.
Mobility decreased: According to the outcomes of strontium isotope investigations, the populations of the Middle and Late Bronze Age Tiszafüred had completely different mobility patterns. In the Late Bronze Age, fewer immigrants have been recognized they usually arrived from completely different migration sources than earlier than.
While within the Middle Bronze Age, beside the locals, a number of immigrants have been noticed among the many individuals residing in Tiszafüred, they usually most probably didn’t come from too far-off (e.g. the Upper Tisza area, the northern a part of the Carpathians), whereas within the Late Bronze Age, the settlers might have come from different geographical areas (e.g. Transdanubia or the Southern Carpathians).
Based on radiocarbon courting, immigration started as early because the 1500s BC, which helps the truth that the communities residing additional west had certainly reached the Great Hungarian Plain on the time of the looks of the Tumulus tradition.
Social relations modified: At the start of the Late Bronze Age, the long-time-used tell-settlements have been deserted and other people lived in much less centralized settlement networks. This change created a looser, much less structured social system—which can also be mirrored in dietary habits.
According to microremains present in dental calculi and the aforementioned isotopic analyses, considerably much less animal protein was consumed throughout this era than earlier than, which contradicts the earlier thought that individuals belonging to the Tumulus tradition have been primarily engaged in animal husbandry.
The study clearly refutes the earlier concept that Tumulus tradition individuals have been principally pastoralists.
The analysis outcomes present that the modifications related to the emergence of the Tumulus tradition (round 1500 BC)—such because the noticed variations in individuals’s existence, burial customs and settlements—can solely be really understood if conventional archaeological and anthropological research are mixed with fashionable bioarchaeological analyses.
More data:
Claudio Cavazzuti et al, Isotope and archaeobotanical evaluation reveal radical modifications in mobility, food regimen and inequalities round 1500 BCE on the core of Europe, Scientific Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-01113-z
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Eötvös Loránd University
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A turning mark within the Bronze Age: Study reveals food regimen and social transformation in Central Europe round 1500 BC ( 6)
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