The significance of resources in cultural history is not only reflected in people's actions, but also directly in their bodies. Differences in access to resources and their specific ways of use can find direct correspondences in physical appearance and thus provide valuable individualised, but also generalisable information about natural, economic and socio-cultural living conditions and thus shed light on interactions with cultural-historical dynamics.
During the first phase of the project, the region of Alamannic settlement in Baden-Württemberg was intensively investigated. On the basis of selected cemeteries from the 5th to the 8th cent. AD, the settlement area was analysed in terms of its natural and economic conditions by means of economic history on the one hand, while selected skeletal material was thoroughly examined on the other. Thus, for the Fridingen cemetery, a clear correlation between the richly equipped separate burials and the isotope values, which point to a protein-rich diet, could be proven. A certain group of people thus had access to a deviant diet and could afford to engage in elaborate grave construction and 'destroy' different objects in the graves. It is of particular interest whether these results for the Alamannic area can also be attested at other times and in other places. During the second phase, the focus was therefore placed on the Viking Age, especially on regions in Scandinavia and (later) northern Germany, which were potentially characterised by geographical mobility from the 8th to the 11th cent. AD. In terms of content, special attention was paid in this second phase to the interaction of violence (measurable through skull trauma and weapon traces), lifestyle and cultural-historical dynamics. The focus was on three regions: 1. the cemeteries of Thumby-Bienebek and Kosel near the trading post of Haithabu, to investigate centre-periphery effects. 2. several cemeteries on the Danish island of Bornholm to look at the contact of Scandinavian and possibly Slavic populations. 3. the island of Gotland with its central role in the eastern Baltic region. In both the early medieval subsamples of the Alamanni (project phase 1) and the Scandinavians (project phase 2), analyses of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes showed that different dietary strategies existed both between settlement sites and within populations, including gender-specific patterns. Men were subject to greater social differentiation compared to women, who had a more homogeneous diet overall. In the second phase of the project, correlations between individuals with 'remarkable' archaeological grave features (for example burial mounds) and a high-quality dietary composition could be established for Viking Age burials. From this finding, different access to food resources can be deduced, which reinforces the results from the first phase of the project. It was shown that the resource-related inequality in Viking Age society between men and women was relatively small. In animal husbandry, which is an important part of the resource complex 'food', women were able to make a larger contribution to household income and thus achieved a stronger social position than in other regions of Europe at the same time. Furthermore, a successive merging of traditional and foreign cultural elements can be observed, such as symbolisms of the emerging Christian faith. Although inequality in nutrition and health was present in Nordic society, according to our results it was less pronounced than in Central European early medieval society.
Whether this was also the case for non-maritime (inland) and maritime (island) populations and resource cultures of the western Mediterranean in the Bronze and Iron Ages will be shown by our analyses in the third project phase. As in phases 1 and 2, this third phase of the project is based on an analysis of skeletons using anthropological and biochemical (isotope-specific) methods. For the study of a maritime society, exceptionally well preserved archaeological and anthropological materials can be used, which were found in the Biniadrís cave on Menorca and which can represent the entire demographic profile of a village community of this time. With the help of anthropological and scientific methods, the skeletal material will be studied in detail, as in the previous phases of funding, under the factors of age, sex and health status (including pathologies), as well as muscle-induced changes in bone morphology (especially entheses). In addition, several archaeological layers allow the chronological differentiation of the material. From this – and from non-maritime comparative samples from the interior of south-western Europe – a unique possibility arises to reconstruct nutrition and health as well as functional assignments and adaptations of use as specific ResourceCultures for maritime and non-maritime economies during the Bronze and Iron Ages and to detect inequalities within the societies. Food production on Menorca and the non-maritime regions of comparison in the western Mediterranean will be documented over time on the basis of regional dietary patterns of the Bronze and Iron Ages, and the changes in cultivated products will be investigated bioarchaeologically. For this purpose, animal bones will also be subjected to intensive investigation, because the ResourceComplex livestock farming was one of the important food sources on Menorca. In addition, the production of the maritime and non-maritime economies and their sustainability will be researched to see whether or not demographic pressure on Menorca led to equilibrium growth. Migration could be an alternative hypothesis to explain the patterns observed, which will be investigated by carrying out 100 analyses of strontium isotopes. Overall, it will be investigated whether certain forms of power structures expressed themselves in culturally predetermined behaviour. This question will contribute to the general understanding of the social and cultural structures of maritime and non-maritime populations. The results on diet and migration will be put into a comparative context with those of the first and second phase of the project. The observed dependencies in food consumption and migration events will be analysed as adaptation, integration or rejection processes.
