Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-l4dxg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-08T19:07:49.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Touch not the fish: the Mesolithic-Neolithic change of diet and its significance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

M.P. Richards  and
R.J. Schulting
M.P. Richards
Affiliation:
1Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, D-04105, Germany, and Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, South Road, Durhom, DH1 3LE, UK (Email: [email protected])
R.J. Schulting
Affiliation:
2School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology, The Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT7 1NN, UK (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Stable isotope analysis has startled the archaeological community by showing a rapid and widespread change from a marine to terrestrial diet (ie from fish to domesticated plants and animals) as people moved from a Mesolithic to a Neolithic culture. This could be a consequence of domestication, or as Julian Thomas (2003) proposed, of a kind of taboo (‘Touch not the fish’). In a key challenge, Nicky Milner and her colleagues (2004) questioned the reality of this nutritional revolution, contrasting the message of the bones and shells found on settlement sites, with the isotope measurements in the bones of people. Here Mike Richards and Rick Schulting, champions of the diet-revolution, strongly reinforce the arguments. The change was real, it seems: so what does it mean? Milner and colleagues respond.

Keywords

Northern EuropeMesolithicstable isotopesdiettaboo
Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 80 , Issue 308 , 1 June 2006 , pp. 444 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambers, J.C. 1990. Identification of the use of marine plant material as animal fodder by stable isotoperatios. PACT 29: 251–8.Google Scholar
Ambrose, S.H. & Norr, L. 1993. Experimental evidence for the relationship of the carbon isotoperatios of whole diet and dietary protein to those of bone collagen and carbonate, in Lambert, J. & Grupe, G. (ed.) Prehistoric Human Bone: Archaeology at the Molecular Level: 1–37. New York: Springer – Verlag.Google Scholar
Armour-Chelu, M. 1998. The animal bone, in Pryor, F. (ed.) Etton: Excavations at a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure near Maxey, Cambridgeshire,1982–7: 273–88. London: English Heritage.Google Scholar
Bailey, G.N. 1975. The role of molluscs in coastal economies: the results of midden analysis in Australia. Journal of Archaeological Science 2: 45–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, G.N. 1978. Shell middens as indicators of postglacial economies: a territorial perspective, in Mellars, P. (ed.) The Early Postglacial Settlement of Northern Europe: An Ecological Perspective: 37–63. Pittsburgh(PA): University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, G.N. & Milner, N.J. 2002. Coastal hunter-gatherers and social evolution: marginal or central? Before Farming, the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers 3–4: 1–15.Google Scholar
Balasse, M., Tresset, A., Dobney, K. & Ambrose, S.H. 2005. The use of isotope ratios to test for seaweed eating in sheep. Journal of the Zoological Society of London 266: 283–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berglund, B.E., Sandgren, P., Barnekow, L., Hannon, G., Jiang, H., Skog, G. & Yu, S.-Y. 2005. Early Holocene history of the Baltic Sea, as reflected in coastal sediments in Blekinge, southeastern Sweden. Quaternary International 130: 111–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, C. 1995. The Littorina transgressions in Denmark, in Fischer, A. (ed.) Man and Sea in the Mesolithic: 15–22. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Colley, S. 1983. Interpreting prehistoric fishing strategies: an Orkney case study, in Grigson, C. & Clutton-Brock, J. (ed.) Animals and Archaeology: 2. Shell Middens, Fishes and Birds: 157–71. BAR International Series 183. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1984. Fundamental issues in food problems. Current Anthropology 25: 498–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, A. 2002. Food for feasting? An evaluation of explanations of the neolithisation of Denmark and southern Sweden, in Fischer, A. & Kristiansen, K. (ed.) The Neolithisation of Denmark - 150 Years of Debate: 343–93. Sheffield Archaeological Monographs 12. Sheffield: JR Collis Publications.Google Scholar
Grigson, C. 1999. The mammalian remains, in Whittle, A., Pollard, J. & Grigson, C. (ed.) The Harmony of Symbols: The Windmill Hill Causewayed Enclosure, Wiltshire: 164–252. Oxford: Oxbow.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, M. 1986. Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Harris, M. 1987. Foodways: Historical Overview and Theoretical Prolegomenon, in Harris, M. & E.B., Ross (ed.) Food and Evolution: Toward a Theory of Human Food Habits: 57–90. Philadelphia (PA): Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Hawkes, K. & O’Connell, J.F. 1992. On Optimal Foraging Models and Subsistence Transitions. Current Anthropology 33: 63–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hedges, R.E.M. 2004. Isotopes and red herrings: comments on Milner et al. and Lideén et al. Antiquity 78: 34–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jardine, W.G. 1984. The role of geomorphology and geology in archaeological studies: a synopsis. Glasgow Journal of Archaeology 11: 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jonsson, L. 1988. The vertebrate faunal remains from the Late Atlantic settlement Skateholm in Scania, south Sweden, in Larsson, L. (ed.) The Skateholm Project. I. Man and Environment: 56–88. Almqvist and Wiksell International, Stockholm: Acta Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Ludensis LXXIX.Google Scholar
Kelly, J.F. 2000. Stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the study of avian and mammalian trophic ecology. Canadian Journal of Zoology 78: 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legge, A.J. 1981. Aspects of cattle husbandry, in Mercer, R. (ed.) Farming Practice in British Prehistory: 169–81. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Lidén, K., Eriksson, G., Nordqvist, B., Goötherströom, A. & Bendixen, E. 2004. “The west and the wild followed by the dry and the tame” — or did they occur at the same time? Diet in Mesolithic-Neolithic southern Sweden. Antiquity 78: 23–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubell, D., Jackes, M., Schwarcz, H., Knyf, M. & Meiklejohn, C. 1994. The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Portugal: Isotopic and dental evidence of diet. Journal of Archaeological Science 21: 201–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lõugas, L., Lidén, K. & Nelson, D.E. 1996. Resource utilization along the Estonian coast during the Stone Age. PACT 51: 399–420.Google Scholar
Malainey, M.E., Przybylski, R. & Sherriff, B.L. 2001. One Person’s Food: How and Why Fish Avoidance May Affect the Settlement and Subsistence Patterns of Hunter-Gatherers. American Antiquity 66: 141–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Milner, N., Craig, O.E. Bailey, G.N. Pedersen, K. & Andersen, S.H. 2004. Something fishy in the Neolithic? A re-evaluation of stable isotope analysis of Mesolithic and Neolithic coastal populations. Antiquity 78: 9–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mithen, S. 2000. Mesolithic sedentism on Oronsay:chronological evidence from adjacent islands in the Southern Hebrides. Antiquity 74: 298–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noddle, B. 1983. Mammal remains from Knap of Howar, Orkney, in Ritchie, A. (ed.) Excavation of a Neolithic farmstead at Knap of Howar, Papa Westray, Orkney. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 113: 92–100.Google Scholar
Owens, N. 1987. Natural variations in 15N in the marine environment. Advances in Marine Biology 24: 389–451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, B.J., Howarth, R.W. & Garritt, R.H. 1985. Multiple stable isotopes used to trace the flow of organic matter in estuarine food webs. Science 227: 1361–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peterson, B.J. & Fry, B. 1987. Stable isotopes in ecosystem studies. Annual Reviews of Ecological Systems 18: 293–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Post, D.M. 2002. Using stable isotope models to estimate trophic position: Models, methods and assumptions. Ecology 83: 703–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, T.D., Bennike, P. Brinch Petersen, E. Noe-Nygaard, N. Ambrose, S. Richards, M.P. Vang Petersen, P. & Heinemeier, J. in press. The stone age graves at Dragsholm, Denmark:New dates, isotopes and other information. Acta Archaeologica.Google Scholar
Richards, M.P. 2003. Explaining the dietary isotope evidence for the rapid adoption of the Neolithic in Britain, in Parker-Pearson, M. (ed.) Food, Culture and Identity in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age: 31–6. BAR International Series 1117. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Richards, M.P. & Hedges, R.E.M. 1999. A Neolithic revolution? New evidence of diet in the British Neolithic. Antiquity 73: 891–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, M.P., Schulting, R.J. & Hedges, R.E.M. 2003a. Sharp shift in diet at onset of Neolithic. Nature 425: 366.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richards, M.P., Price, T.D. & Koch, E. 2003b. The Mesolithic/Neolithic Transition in Denmark: New stable isotope data. Current Anthropology 44: 288–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, M.P. & Mellars, P. 1998. Stable isotopes and the seasonality of the Oronsay middens. Antiquity 72: 178–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, M.P. & Sheridan, J.A. 2000. New AMS dates on human bone from Mesolithic Oronsay. Antiquity 74: 313–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schulting, R.J. 1998. Slighting the sea: the transition to farming in northwest Europe. Documenta Praehistorica 25: 203–18.Google Scholar
Schulting, R.J. 2004. An Irish Sea change: some implications for the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, in Cummings, V. & Fowler, C. (ed.) The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: Materiality and Traditions of Practice: 22–8. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Schulting, R.J. & Richards, M.P. 2001. Dating women and becoming farmers: new palaeodietary and AMS data from the Breton Mesolithic cemeteries of Teéviec and Hoeëdic. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20: 314–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schulting, R.J. 2002a. Finding the coastal Mesolithic in southwest Britain: AMS dates and stable isotope results on human remains from Caldey Island,Pembrokeshire, South Wales. Antiquity 76: 1011–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schulting, R.J. 2002b. The wet, the wild and the domesticated: the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition on the west coast of Scotland. European Journal of Archaeology 5: 147–89.Google Scholar
Schulting, R.J., Tresset, A. & Dupont, C. 2004. From harvesting the sea to stock rearing along the Atlantic facade of north-west Europe. Environmental Archaeology 9: 143–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simoons, F.J. 1994. Eat Not This Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present. Madison (WI): University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Sloan, D. 1982. Nether Kinneil. Current Archaeology 84: 13–5.Google Scholar
Stallibrass, S. & Huntley, J.P. 1996. Slim evidence: a review of the faunal and botanical data from the Neolithic of northern England, in Frodsham, P. (ed.) Neolithic Studies in No-Man’s Land: 35–42. Northern Archaeology Volume 13/14, Journal of the Northumberland Archaeological Group.Google Scholar
Tauber, H. 1981a. 13C evidence for dietary habits of prehistoric man in Denmark. Nature 292: 332–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tauber, H. 1981b. Kostvaner i forhistorisk tid – belyst ved C–13 maålinger. In Det skabende menneske, pp. 112–26. Copenhagen: National Museum.Google Scholar
Tauber, H. 1983. 14C dating of human beings in relation to dietary habits. PACT 8: 365–75.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. 1991. Rethinking the Neolithic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, J. 2003. Thoughts on the ‘repacked’ Neolithic revolution. Antiquity 77: 67–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tresset, A. 2000. Early husbandry in Atlantic areas.Animal introductions, diffusions of techniques and native acculturation at the north-western fringe of Europe, in Henderson, J.C. (ed.) The Prehistory and Early History of Atlantic Europe: 17–32. BAR International Series 861. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Tresset, A. 2003. French connections II: of cows and men, in Armit, I. Murphy, E. Nelis, E. & Simpson, D. (ed.) Neolithic Settlement in Ireland and Western Britain: 18–30. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. 2004. USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 17. Nutrient Data Laboratory Home Page, Google Scholar
VanderKlift, M.A. & Ponsard, S. 2003. Sources of variation in consumer-diet d15N enrichment:a meta-analysis. Oecologia 136: 169–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, A. 1983. Fish remains from Knap of Howar,Orkney, in Ritchie, A. (ed.) Excavation of a Neolithic farmstead at Knap of Howar, Papa Westray, Orkney. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 113: 103–5.Google Scholar
Winterhalder, B. 1993. Work, Resources and Population in Foraging Societies. Man 28: 321–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar