Subsistence Strategies in the Lower Danube During the Early First Millennium BC: Archaeozoological and Archaeobotanical Evidence from the Babadag Settlement (Southeastern Romania)

The subsistence economy of Early Iron Age communities in the Lower Danube remains insufficiently documented despite the large number of settlements attributed to the Babadag culture. This study examines subsistence practices at the eponymous Babadag settlement by combining archaeozoological, carpological, phytolith, and radiocarbon evidence from legacy excavation materials. The chronological framework includes 14 radiocarbon determinations, which broadly support an occupation between the end of the 11th/beginning of the 10th century BC and mid-8th century BC. The analysed assemblages comprise 11,475 faunal remains, two samples of charred plant macroremains, and nine sediment samples for phytolith analysis. Domestic mammals dominate the faunal assemblage, especially cattle and sheep/goat, with fishing providing an important supplementary food resource while hunting remained limited. Age-at-death data, together with the limited sex-ratio evidence, are consistent with mixed livestock exploitation, which may have included meat production, dairying, traction, wool production, and reproduction. Carpological remains document hulled barley, emmer, spelt wheat, and common millet, while phytoliths indicate repeated inputs of grass material into archaeological deposits. Overall, the evidence indicates a diversified subsistence economy based primarily on animal husbandry and cereal cultivation and processing, supplemented by fishing and the limited use of wild resources.