Slavic and Germanic populations differed in their diets in the Middle Ages. Slavs loved millet porridge

9 Oct 2025

The first Slavs in Central Europe consumed mostly milk, millet and honey. This distinguished them from the Germans, who instead favoured pork. This is based on extensive analyses of food molecules preserved in pot shards and from the bones of consumed animals. According to current research, the two populations differed not only genetically, but also in their lifestyle and diet. This is the conclusion of international research led by Jiří Macháček, head of the Department of Archaeology and Museology at Masaryk University in Brno.

The results of the analyses show that in context of migration and population change at the beginning of the early Middle Ages (6th to 7th century), which followed the Migration Period (5th to 6th century), the way of life of the inhabitants of Central Europe changed radically, including the composition of their diet. “Food and culinary practices are considered one of the important cultural features that distinguish different social, religious or ethnic groups from each other,” Macháček explains.

Scientists determined the composition of the diet by analysing organic residues, mainly lipids (fats), whose molecules have been preserved for centuries in the walls of ceramic vessels used for cooking. It turned out that the newcomers from the European Northeast, whom we usually refer to as Slavs, preferred ingredients which they probably used to cooked porridge.

They differed from the settled population of Central Europe of Germanic origin, who avoided millet and preferred pork in their cuisine. “The popularity of millet and the porridge made from it lasted a long time among the Slavs. Even at the time of Great Moravia, the first proto-state formation of the Western Slavs in the 9th century, the entire population, including the Great Moravian elite, consumed millet in large quantities,” Macháček explained, adding that this is evident from the analysis of carbon isotopes in human bones, where millet, as a specific crop, leaves an unmistakable signal.

The remains of food that was cooked in pots, of which only a few shards have survived to this day, can also be precisely dated. “It's fascinating what today's science can do. From the few food molecules preserved in the pot shards and from the bones of the consumed animals, we are able to determine, using the radiocarbon method, that the change in the way of life brought by migrants from the East occurred somewhere between 560 and 600 AD. This is when we were joined by people whose descendants spoke a Slavic language and who, for many generations, enjoyed porridge with honey,” Macháček adds.

According to Macháček, archaeology and the natural sciences collaborating with it show how today’s Europe was shaped at a time when the composition of the European population and its way of life changed significantly after the fall of the Roman Empire. Thanks to recent research carried out, among other things, through the RES-HUM project, we know considerably more about the early Slavs than we did before. 

The current findings build on recently published studies in Nature and Genome Biology. Based on genetics, these connected the ancient Slavs with the migration wave that fundamentally changed Europe. This process occurred in different ways in the individual European regions. The studies, which were mainly conducted by Masaryk University scientists, explain the genetic and cultural diversity of contemporary Europe.

Link to the scientific article in the Journal of Archaeological Science: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2025.106213

Useful links: https://reshum.muni.cz/clanky/nove-analyzy-dna-z-kosti-odhaluji-jak-slovanska-migrace-promenila-stredni-a-vychodni-evropu