Assessing the mobility of Bronze Age societies in East-Central Europe. A strontium and oxygen isotope perspective on two archaeological sites

European Bronze Age societies are generally characterised by increased mobility and the application of isotopic methods to archaeology has allowed the rate and range of human travels to be quantified. However, little is known about the mobility of the people inhabiting East-Central Europe in the late Early and Middle Bronze Age (1950-1250 BC) whose primary subsistence strategy was herding supported by crop cultivation. This paper presents the results of strontium (Sr-87/Sr-86) and oxygen (& delta;O-18) isotope analyses in the enamel of people buried in collective graves at the cemeteries in Gustorzyn and Zerniki Gorne. These sites are located in Kujawy and the Nida Basin, a lowland and an upland region with clearly different environmental conditions, respectively. Both sites are classified as belonging to the Trzciniec cultural circle and were used between 16(th) and 13(th) centuries BC. Among the 34 examined individuals only an adult female from Gustorzyn can be assessed as non-local based on both Sr-87/Sr-86 and & delta;O-18 signatures in her first molar. This may indicate the practice of exogamy in the studied population but more generally corresponds with the hypothesis of limited mobility within these societies, as has previously been inferred from archaeological evidence, anthropological analysis, and stable isotope-based diet reconstruction. New and existing data evaluated in this paper show that the Sr-87/Sr-86 variability in the natural environment of both regions is relatively high, allowing the tracking of short-range human mobility. A series of oxygen isotope analyses (conducted for all but one individuals studied with strontium isotopes) indicates that & delta;O-18 ratios measured in phosphate are in agreement with the predicted modern oxygen isotope precipitation values, and that this method is useful in detecting travels over larger distances. The challenges of using both Sr-87/Sr-86 and & delta;O-18 isotopic systems in provenance studies in the glacial landscapes of temperate Europe are also discussed.

Automated summary

The use of isotopic methods reveals that the mobility of the people in East-Central Europe during the Bronze Age was limited, possibly due to endogamy.