This study aimed to reconstruct the environmental conditions and the crop management practices and plant characteristics when agriculture appeared in western Europe. We analyzed oak charcoal and a large number of cereal caryopsides recovered from La Draga (Girona, Spain), an early (5300 to 4800 cal. BC) agricultural site from the Iberian Peninsula. The carbon isotope discrimination (Δ13C) values of oak, the dominant forest species in the region, indicates prevalence of a wet climate at the site. Further, we reconstructed crop management conditions, achievable yield, and crop characteristics through the analysis of Δ13C, nitrogen isotope composition (δ15N), nitrogen content, and the reconstructed weight of wheat and barley caryopsides, following protocols developed by our team [Araus et al., Nat. Commun. 5, 3953 (2014)] and comparison of these parameters with present-day organic agriculture in the region. In parallel, a regional perspective was achieved through the study of wheat and barley grains of seventeen Neolithic sites from the western Mediterranean. The results suggest that rather than small-garden cultivation, a more extensive agriculture was practiced under good water availability and moderate manuring. Moreover, results from La Draga evidence that grain weight and spike morphology were comparable to contemporary cereals. Growing conditions and the prevalence of improved crop traits indicate that agriculture was fairly consolidated at the time it reached the western edge of Europe.
Keywords: Neolithic; Paleo reconstruction; agriculture; cereals; stable isotopes.