scholarly journals Stable Isotope Palaeodietary and Radiocarbon Evidence from the Early Neolithic Site of Zemunica, Dalmatia, Croatia

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Guiry ◽  
Ivor Karavanić ◽  
Rajna Šošić Klindžić ◽  
Sahra Talamo ◽  
Siniša Radović ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stable Isotope ◽  
Adriatic Sea ◽  
Near East ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Adriatic Coast ◽  
Isotope Evidence ◽  
Main Protein ◽  
Spread Of Agriculture

The Adriatic Sea and Balkan Peninsula were an important corridor for the spread of agriculture northwards and westwards from the Near East into Europe. Therefore, the pace and nature of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition along the Adriatic coastline has important implications for the movement of new peoples and/or ideas during one of the most eventful periods in European prehistory. We present new Early Neolithic radiocarbon and stable isotope evidence from humans and animals from the Zemunica cave site in Dalmatia, Croatia. The results show that these humans date to the earliest Neolithic in the region, and they have completely terrestrial diets, where the main protein source was most likely to have come from domesticated animals. Data are then compared to previous isotope and archaeological evidence to explore models for the spread of agriculture along the eastern Adriatic coast.

scholarly journals Strategic and sporadic marine consumption at the onset of the Neolithic: increasing temporal resolution in the isotope evidence

Antiquity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (338) ◽  
pp. 1060-1072 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Montgomery ◽  
Julia Beaumont ◽  
Mandy Jay ◽  
Katie Keefe ◽  
Andrew R. Gledhill ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stable Isotope ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Isotope Analysis ◽  
Cereal Crops ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
North West ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Isotope Evidence ◽  
Marine Food ◽  
Radical Shift

Stable isotope analysis has provided crucial new insights into dietary change at the Neolithic transition in north-west Europe, indicating an unexpectedly sudden and radical shift from marine to terrestrial resources in coastal and island locations. Investigations of early Neolithic skeletal material from Sumburgh on Shetland, at the far-flung margins of the Neolithic world, suggest that this general pattern may mask significant subtle detail. Analysis of juvenile dentine reveals the consumption of marine foods on an occasional basis. This suggests that marine foods may have been consumed as a crucial supplementary resource in times of famine, when the newly introduced cereal crops failed to cope with the demanding climate of Shetland. This isotopic evidence is consistent with the presence of marine food debris in contemporary middens. The occasional and contingent nature of marine food consumption underlines how, even on Shetland, the shift from marine to terrestrial diet was a key element in the Neolithic transition.

scholarly journals Is the Mesolithic–Neolithic Subsistence Dichotomy Real? New Stable Isotope Evidence from the Danube Gorges

2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dušan Borić ◽  
Gisela Grupe ◽  
Joris Peters ◽  
Živko Mikić
Keyword(s):  
Stable Isotope ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Stable Isotope Analyses ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Human Bones ◽  
Isotopic Studies ◽  
Isotope Evidence ◽  
Human Burials ◽  
Isotope Analyses

The article presents new results of stable isotope analyses made on animal and human bones from the Mesolithic–early Neolithic sites of Lepenski Vir and Vlasac in the Danube Gorges of the Balkans. It reconstructs the food web for the region during these periods on the basis of stable isotope analyses of mammal and fish species found at Vlasac. These results are compared to measurements made on human burials from the two sites. In the light of these new results, the article also discusses interpretations provided by previous isotopic studies of this material. It concludes that great care is required in the interpretation of stable isotope results due to inherent methodological complexities of this type of analysis, and suggests that it is also necessary to integrate stable isotope results with information based on the examination of faunal remains and the archaeological context of analysed burials when making inferences about palaeodietary patterns.

Early Neolithic diet and animal husbandry: stable isotope evidence from three Linearbandkeramik (LBK) sites in Central Germany

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicky M. Oelze ◽  
Angelina Siebert ◽  
Nicole Nicklisch ◽  
Harald Meller ◽  
Veit Dresely ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stable Isotope ◽  
Animal Husbandry ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Central Germany ◽  
Isotope Evidence

scholarly journals Stable isotope evidence for crustal recycling as recorded by superdeep diamonds

2015 ◽  
Vol 432 ◽  
pp. 374-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.D. Burnham ◽  
A.R. Thomson ◽  
G.P. Bulanova ◽  
S.C. Kohn ◽  
C.B. Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stable Isotope ◽  
Crustal Recycling ◽  
Isotope Evidence
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