Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T04:03:39.236Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Neolithic revolution? New evidence of diet in the British Neolithic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

M. P. Richards
Affiliation:
Research Laboratory for Archaeology & the History of Art, University of Oxford, 6 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3QJ, England Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby BC, Canada V5A 1S6
R. E. M. Hedges
Affiliation:
Research Laboratory for Archaeology & the History of Art, University of Oxford, 6 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3QJ, England

Abstract

Were marine foods still a significant part of the diet in the Early and Middle Neolithic in Britain? This paper presents new evidence, from δ13C measurements of 78 radiocarbon-dated humans from 27 coastal and inland sites in England and Wales, for an apparent abandonment of the use of marine foods in the British Early and Middle Neolithic.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1999

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

Ambrose, S.H. 1993. Isotopic analysis of paleodiets: methodological and interpretive considerations, in Sandford, M.K. (ed.), Investigations of ancient human tissue: chemical analyses in anthropology. 59130. Langhome (PA): Gordon & Breach Science Publishers.Google Scholar
Barker, G. 1985. Prehistoric farming in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Case, H. 1969. Neolithic explanations, Antiquity 43: 17686.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennell, R.W. 1983. European economic prehistory. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gonzalez, S. & Turner, A.. In preparation. Prehistoric human and ungulate remains from Preston Dock, Lancashire: problems of river finds.Google Scholar
Green, F.L. 1996. Mesolithic or later houses at Bowmans Farm, Romsey Extra, Hampshire, England?, in Darvill, T. & Thomas, J. (ed.), Neolithic houses in northwest Europe and beyond: 11322. Oxford: Oxbow. Monograph 57.Google Scholar
Hedges, R.E.M., Law, L.A. Bronk, C.R. & Housley, R.A.. 1989. The Oxford accelerator mass spectrometry facility: Technical developments in routine dating, Archaeometry 31(2): 99113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hedges, R.E.M., Housley, R.A. Bronk-Ramsey, C. & Van Klinken, G.J.. 1994. Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS system: Datelist 18, Archaeometry 36(2): 33774.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liden, K. 1995. Prehistoric diet transitions. Stockholm: University of Stockholm.Google Scholar
Lijbell, 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: 20116.Google Scholar
Pitts, M.W. & Jacobi, R.M.. 1979. Some aspects of change in flaked stone industries of the Mesolithic and Neolithic in Southern Britain, Journal of Archaeological Science 6:16377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, T.D. 1997. The first farmers of southern Scandinavia, in Harris, D. (ed.), The origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Eurasia: 34662. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Richards, M.P. 1998. Palaeodietary studies of European human populations using bone stable isotopes. Unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Richards, M.P. & Mellars, P.. 1998. Stable isotopes and the seasonality of the Oronsay middens, Antiquity 72: 17884.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoeninger, M., Deniro, M. & Tauber, H.. 1983. Stable nitrogen isotope ratios of bone collagen reflect marine and terrestrial components of prehistoric human diet, Science 220:13811383.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schulting, R.J. In press. New AMS dates from the Lambourn long barow and the earliest Neolithic in southern Britain: repacking the Neolithic package?, Oxford Journal of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Schwarcz, H. & Schoeninger, M.. 1991. Stable isotope analyses in human nutritional ecology, Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 34: 283321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tauber, H. 1981. 13C evidence for dietary habits of prehistoric man in Denmark, Nature 292: 3323.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whittle, A.W.R. 1996. Europe in the Neolithic: The creation of New Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, E. 1989. Dating the introduction of food production into Britain and Ireland, Antiquity 63: 51021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zvelebil, M. & Rowley-Conwy, P.A.. 1986. Foragers and farmers in Atlantic Europe, in Zvelebil, M. (ed.), Hunters in transition: Mesolithic societies of temperate Eurasia and their transition to farming: 6794. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar