Reconstruction
Vaihingen an der Enz provides an unusually detailed view of food and community among the Linearbandkeramik, or LBK, farmers who established agriculture across temperate central Europe. Excavated almost completely between 1994 and 2003, the settlement covered roughly eight hectares and contained densely overlapping longhouses, pits, an enclosure ditch and numerous burials. Published chronological estimates place its full occupation at approximately 5500 or 5425 to about 5070 BCE, beginning earlier than the range given on this card.
Systematic sampling recovered charred einkorn and emmer wheat, another glume-wheat form, peas and lentils. Flax and opium poppy were also present, although their precise culinary, medicinal or technical uses cannot always be determined. Weed seeds mixed with cereal chaff indicate that crops came from long-established plots managed through repeated tillage and weeding. Stable nitrogen-isotope evidence supports the interpretation that at least some crops were manured, linking cultivation closely to livestock keeping and the recycling of animal or household waste.
Animal bones document domestic cattle, pigs, sheep and goats alongside hunted wildlife, especially red deer. Hunting contributed meat, but wild taxa represented only a minority of the studied faunal remains. Age profiles did not demonstrate secondary exploitation of Vaihingen cattle, such as systematic dairying, while hair or fleece use by sheep and goats was considered probable. This does not prove that milk was never consumed; it means the available mortality evidence cannot establish a dairy-oriented cattle economy.
No preserved recipe identifies what villagers called or served at meals. Hulled wheats required threshing and dehusking before grain could be cracked or ground, and pottery made boiling or stewing possible. Gruels, porridges, pulse dishes and cereal breads are therefore reasonable LBK reconstructions, but none is directly demonstrated as a specific Vaihingen dish. Isotope models that incorporate the unusually elevated nitrogen values of local crops suggest that manured cereals and pulses, rather than animal foods, probably supplied most dietary protein.
Food production also illuminates social organization. Differences in pottery and plant assemblages across the settlement have been interpreted as evidence for neighborhoods or lineage-like groups using distinct cultivation areas. Some fields appear to have remained associated with particular groups over generations. The enclosure ditch, its later reuse for burial and subsequent changes in mortuary practice show that this social landscape was not static, even though farming continued for nearly four centuries.
Vaihingen matters today because it captures the establishment of a durable mixed-farming system: wheat and pulses cultivated intensively beside managed livestock. Modern wheat agriculture has changed enormously, but einkorn, emmer, peas, lentils and flax remain cultivated foods or crops. Their presence at Vaihingen records one stage in the long westward transmission and local adaptation of plants first domesticated in Southwest Asia.
Historical context
LBK farming communities extended from the Hungarian Plain into central and western Europe, carrying Southwest Asian crops, livestock, pottery and timber-longhouse architecture into temperate woodland environments. Vaihingen began with a small cluster of houses and expanded substantially; one reconstruction proposes at least 40 simultaneously occupied houses near its peak, although converting houses into population figures is uncertain. Its residents maintained fields on fertile loess near the Enz valley while participating in wider networks through which people, livestock, stone and cultural practices moved across regions extending hundreds of kilometers.
Evidence
Archaeological
StrongNear-complete excavation documented an approximately eight-hectare settlement with dense longhouse plans, pits, an enclosure ditch and burials spanning multiple LBK phases.
Archaeobotanical
StrongSystematically collected charred remains directly identify einkorn, emmer and other glume wheat, pea, lentil, flax, opium poppy and associated arable weeds.
Zooarchaeological
StrongA large, well-preserved bone assemblage directly documents cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and hunted animals and permits analysis of herd composition and slaughter ages.
Residue chemical
ModerateStable carbon and nitrogen isotope measurements from plants, animals and humans support dietary and land-management models, but they do not identify individual meals or recipes.
Food identification
StrongCrop taxa and animal species are supported by direct botanical and osteological identifications; the culinary roles of flax and opium poppy remain less certain.
Dating
ModeratePottery seriation, settlement phases and absolute chronological models securely place the occupation in the later sixth millennium BCE, but published estimates differ over its precise beginning and end.
Preparation method
LimitedCrop-processing debris and the wider LBK tool and pottery repertoire support dehusking, grinding and boiling as reasonable practices, but no particular Vaihingen recipe or finished dish is directly preserved.
Geographic attribution
StrongThe excavated settlement is securely located north of modern Vaihingen an der Enz between the Enz valley and the Stromberg uplands in Baden-Württemberg.
Historical interpretation
ProbableSpatial differences in pottery, crops and cultivation conditions probably reflect persistent neighborhood or lineage-like groups, but social identities and land tenure cannot be observed directly.
Visual reconstruction
InterpretiveReconstructions of standing longhouses, fields, meals, clothing and daily activity combine excavated evidence with comparative and experimental assumptions.
Sources
- 1.Bogaard, A.; Arbogast, R.-M.; Ebersbach, et al. (2017). The Bandkeramik settlement of Vaihingen an der Enz, Kreis Ludwigsburg (Baden-Württemberg): an integrated perspective on land use, economy and diet. Germania 94, 1–60. doi:10.11588/ger.2016.39068Primary archaeology
- 2.Bogaard, A. (2011). The Archaeobotany of Vaihingen an der Enz, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Archaeology Data Service dataset. doi:10.5284/1011849Primary archaeology
- 3.Bogaard, A.; Krause, R.; Strien, H.-C. (2011). Towards a social geography of cultivation and plant use in an early farming community: Vaihingen an der Enz, south-west Germany. Antiquity 85(328), 395–416. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00067831Scientific literature
- 4.Fraser, R.A.; Bogaard, A.; Schäfer, et al. (2013). Integrating botanical, faunal and human stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values to reconstruct land use and palaeodiet at LBK Vaihingen an der Enz, Baden-Württemberg. World Archaeology 45(3), 492–517. doi:10.1080/00438243.2013.820649Scientific literature
- 5.Schäfer, M. (2010). Archäozoologische Untersuchung der Tierknochen aus der linearbandkeramischen Siedlung Vaihingen/Enz (Kreis Ludwigsburg D) und ihre Interpretation. University of Basel doctoral dissertation. doi:10.5451/unibas-006786840Primary archaeology
- 6.Weiss, E.; Zohary, D. (2011). The Neolithic Southwest Asian Founder Crops: Their Biology and Archaeobotany. Current Anthropology 52(S4). doi:10.1086/658367Modern synthesis
Limitations
- moderatedate start
The supplied start date of approximately 5300 BCE is later than stronger site chronologies. Published estimates place initial occupation around 5500/5475 BCE or approximately 5425 BCE, with abandonment near 5084–5070 BCE.
