麻豆淫院

Rye products, such as black bread or pumpernickel, are not only considered as being typically German. They are also often marketed as being particularly rustic and traditional. However, rye has only been part of the human diet for a relatively short period of time.

While other cereals such as wheat and barley have been cultivated in Central Europe since the beginning of the Neolithic Age, rye had been considered a weed for thousands of years. This only changed about 2,000 years ago. The main reason for this change鈥攁ccording to common hypothesis so far鈥攚as that rye thrives without much effort on poor, sandy soils and thus slowly became established as a crop.

An interdisciplinary research team at Kiel University (CAU) has now new results in a special volume on research about early cultivation and domestication in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, which questions these previous views.

The modern methods of analysis that were used show that rye was probably more than just an undemanding alternative for poor soils, even at the beginning of its cultivation.

"It did not slowly become a dominant crop as a substitute plant, but through its early integration into a labor-intensive manuring system that already existed at the time, which was mainly based on stable dung," says paleoecologist Dr. Frank Schl眉tz from the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology at Kiel University, lead author of the study.

For this study, the participants examined charred rye grains found during archaeological excavations on the North Sea coast of Lower Saxony and in settlements on the nutrient-poor sandy soils of present-day Brandenburg. The grains date from the period between the 4th century and the 15th century.

The quantities of stable isotopes of nitrogen, carbon and sulfur were measured in the grains. "The nitrogen and sulfur isotopes provide us information about the type and intensity of manuring at the time, while the carbon isotopes tell us about the grain's yield," explains Schl眉tz.

However, the effect of manuring on the isotopes in the cereal grains also depends on the soil quality. The team therefore also carried out analyses on modern rye on different soils for comparison. They used existing agricultural trial areas with dung fertilization in Thyrow (Brandenburg) and Halle an der Saale (Saxony-Anhalt).

Overall, the measurements show that, in the beginning, rye was mostly grown on well-manured fields and only partly on poor, unfertilized soils. The sulfur isotopes suggest that peat was probably also used as a fertilizer in places.

In addition to manuring, crop yields also depended heavily on the water supply. The carbon isotopes show whether the cultivated rye suffered from drought or grew under moist conditions. Overall, the highest yields were probably achieved in the marshes on the North Sea coast. Here, rainfall was naturally high and livestock farming on the rich meadows provided plenty of dung for fertilization.

Thus, the new study shows that rye did not only become a dominant crop in northern Central Europe because of its undemanding nature. Rather, it was productive to integrate it into a diverse agricultural system with heavily manured fields.

This also has consequences for the social valuation of rye. Agriculture and animal husbandry were apparently closely interwoven, and promoted the domestication of rye鈥攁nd a labor-intensive agriculture with surpluses鈥攖he control of which ultimately favored social inequality and consolidated medieval power structures.

"There is much to suggest that the accumulation and control of rye surpluses during the Middle Ages was a means for the upper classes and the church to consolidate their dominant position," explains Schl眉tz. However, rye remained the main food grain for over a thousand years before it was replaced in the 1950s by the wheat we are more familiar with today.