a b s t r a c tArchaeological fish bones reveal increases in marine fish utilisation in Northern and Western Europe beginning in the 10th and 11th centuries AD. We use stable isotope signatures from 300 archaeological cod (Gadus morhua) bones to determine whether this sea fishing revolution resulted from increased local fishing or the introduction of preserved fish transported from distant waters such as Arctic Norway, Iceland and/or the Northern Isles of Scotland (Orkney and Shetland). Results from 12 settlements in England and Flanders (Belgium) indicate that catches were initially local. Between the 9th and 12th centuries most bones represented fish from the southern North Sea. Conversely, by the 13th to 14th centuries demand was increasingly met through long distance transport e signalling the onset of the globalisation of commercial fisheries and suggesting that cities such as London quickly outgrew the capacity of local fish supplies.

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Although recent historical ecology studies have extended quantitative knowledge of eastern Baltic cod (Gadus morhua) exploitation back as far as the 16th century, the historical origin of the modern fishery remains obscure. Widespread archaeological evidence for cod consumption around the eastern Baltic littoral emerges around the 13th century, three centuries before systematic documentation, but it is not clear whether this represents (1) development of a substantial eastern Baltic cod fishery, or (2) large-scale importation of preserved cod from elsewhere. To distinguish between these hypotheses we use stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to determine likely catch regions of 74 cod vertebrae and cleithra from 19 Baltic archaeological sites dated from the 8th to the 16th centuries. δ13C and δ15N signatures for six possible catch regions were established using a larger sample of archaeological cod cranial bones (n = 249). The data strongly support the second hypothesis, revealing widespread importation of cod during the 13th to 14th centuries, most of it probably from Arctic Norway. By the 15th century, however, eastern Baltic cod dominate within our sample, indicating the development of a substantial late medieval fishery. Potential human impact on cod stocks in the eastern Baltic must thus be taken into account for at least the last 600 years.

A comparison of ancient DNA (single-nucleotide polymorphisms) and carbon and nitrogen stable isotope evidence suggests that stored cod provisions recovered from the wreck of the Tudor warship Mary Rose, which sank in the Solent, southern England, in 1545, had been caught in northern and transatlantic waters such as the northern North Sea and the fishing grounds of Iceland and Newfoundland. This discovery, underpinned by control data from archaeological samples of cod bones from potential source regions, illuminates the role of naval provisioning in the early development of extensive sea fisheries, with their long-term economic and ecological impacts.

The discovery of evidence to suggest that copper ore was exploited at the Great Orme on a considerable scale in prehistory is of great significance in our understanding of the development of metalworking technology in the British Isles.In the past, the apparent absence from the archaeological record of a contemporaneous native mineral source for the production of copper and copper alloy artefacts during the Bronze Age has led to the assumption that raw materials, as well as metal technology, were imported from abroad. Alternatively, whilst accepting that local resources could have been exploited, it was assumed that these would have been obliterated by the mining operations of later centuries.There are now several sites on the British mainland and in Ireland which have been identified and dated as having been exploited for copper ores during the Bronze Age, of which a number, as on the Great Orme, had since seen intensive working during the 18th and 19th centuries AD. AS yet, much of the evidence has come essentially from surface excavations, but at the Great Orme surface excavation combined with underground exploration has revealed a system of workings of truly remarkable size. A series of 10 radiocarbon dates has been obtained from within the mine complex, indicating that working was carried out for over a thousand years spanning the Early to Late Bronze Age.The true extent of the surviving prehistoric workings is yet to be realized but present evidence indicates mining activity covering an area in excess of 24,000 square metres, incorporating passages totalling upwards of 5 km, penetrating to a vertical depth of 70 m.Much of the archaeological evidence contained within this report has been gained from detailed excavation carried out within surface workings, which in their own right constitute a sizeable part of the prehistoric mine. From the surface area presently exposed it is conservatively estimated that 40,000 cubic metres of material was removed during the Bronze Age. Much of the early technology represented within the surface workings reflects the technology employed in the deep workings, with the additional evidence of ancillary operations which would seem to relate solely to surface locations.Whilst the excavations reported in this paper relate to surface, or near surface, workings, they must be seen in the context of a labyrinthine complex of prehistoric workings recorded at depths of over yom (Jenkins & Lewis 1991; Lewis 1994). These deep workings are the subject of parallel studies to be reported elsewhere. The known underground and surface prehistoric workings are on a scale so far unparallelled in Britain and are of international significance. Elsewhere in Europe there is evidence for the mining of copper ores at Ai Bunar in Bulgaria dated to 5840 BC (Cernych 1978) and at Rudna Glava in former Yugoslavia dated to 4715 BC (Jovanovic 1979). Evidence for subsequent copper mining has been dated to 3785 BC in southern Spain (Rio Tinto area: Rothenburg & Blanco Freijeiro 1980) and to 3330 BC in Austria (Mitterberg; Pittioni 1951), marking an apparent development and extension westwards and northwards of copper technology. More recently, the dating of two sites in the south of France to around 3330 BC, at Cabrieres (Ambert et al. 1990) and Bouche Payrol, near Brusque (Barge 1985), has confirmed another area of Bronze Age working.