Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep Nitrogen isotope evidence for manuring of early Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture cereals from Stensborg, Sweden Kurt J. Gron a,⁎ , Darren R. Gröcke b , Mikael Larsson c , Lasse Sørensen d , Lars Larsson c , Peter Rowley-Conwy a , Mike J. Church a a Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK b Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK c Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University, Helgonavägen 3, 223 62 Lund, Sweden d The National Museum of Denmark, Frederiksholms Kanal 12, 1220 Copenhagen K, Denmark ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Carbon and nitrogen isotopes Funnel Beaker Culture Neolithic Cereal agriculture Scandinavia Manuring ABSTRACT Little is known about arable agriculture in the Early Neolithic (4000–3300 cal BC, Funnel Beaker Culture) of Southern Scandinavia. Archaeobotanical material is rare and few archaeological sites have yielded more than a small number of charred cereal grains. In this short communication, we present single-entity carbon and ni- trogen isotope analyses of charred cereals from Stensborg, an early Funnel Beaker Culture site near Stockholm, Sweden. This cereal assemblage is important as it is large, well-preserved and consists of multiple crop species. Our isotopic results indicate that many of the Stensborg cereal crops had been manured and that there is intra- and inter-species variation in manuring. We interpret these data as evidence of an integrated regime of stock- keeping and small-scale agriculture in the early Funnel Beaker Culture near its northernmost limit. 1. Introduction Farming practice in the first 700 years of the Funnel Beaker Culture (Early Neolithic, 4000–3300 cal BC, TRB) of the Scandinavian Neolithic is not well understood. Recent research has addressed movement, feeding environments, and birth season manipulation in domestic cattle in this period (Gron et al., 2015, 2016; Gron and Rowley-Conwy, 2017) but the evidence for arable agriculture is limited. Cultivation is sug- gested by the presence of several species of cereal, including emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum (Schrank) Schübl), einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum L.), naked barley (Hordeum sp. var. nudum) and bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) (Robinson, 2003; Hallgren, 2008; Kirleis et al., 2012), and by the presence of plough-marks below earthen long barrows (Beck, 2013). Therefore, while a century of research has fed a persistent debate regarding the underlying drivers of the origins of agriculture in the region (see Madsen et al., 1900; Fischer and Kristiansen, 2002; Andersson et al., 2016; Price, 2016), our basic un- derstanding of the actual agricultural practices being employed is still limited. For example, whether animal manure was applied to crops prior to the Bronze Age is still debated (Bakels, 1997; Gustafsson, 1998; Grabowski, 2011). In this short communication, we present carbon and nitrogen iso- tope analysis of three species of domestic cereals (emmer wheat, naked barley and bread wheat) from the Early Neolithic (hereafter EN) Funnel Beaker Culture (Swedish Trattbägarkultur, hereafter TRB) site at Stensborg, near Stockholm, Sweden. This assemblage represents one of the largest collections of carbonized cereals from Scandinavia during this early period. The site is located in one of the most northerly areas of the TRB North Group (Fig. 1; Hallgren, 2008; Müller, 2011; Sørensen, 2015) and the assemblage presents an opportunity for understanding early Neolithic northern European cultivation near its geographic, cultural and economic limits. 2. Methodological context, materials and methods 2.1. Stable isotope research in archaeobotany Carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of charred plant remains is a relatively new application in archaeological science and a series of studies have shown its research potential for identifying the application of manure to increase productivity in cereals, recognized through higher δ 15 N values (Bol et al., 2005; Bogaard et al., 2007, 2013; Fraser et al., 2011, 2013; Kanstrup et al., 2011, 2014; Kanstrup, 2012; Fiorentino et al., 2012; Nitsch et al., 2015). At present, the only available data of this type from the EN in southern Scandinavia consists of the bulk analysis of five naked barley grains from Frydenlund, Funen, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.06.042 Received 5 April 2017; Received in revised form 22 June 2017; Accepted 25 June 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: k.j.gron@durham.ac.uk (K.J. Gron). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 14 (2017) 575–579 Available online 29 June 2017 2352-409X/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. MARK