Late Upper Palaeolithic human diet: first stable isotope evidence from Riparo Tagliente (Verona, Italy)

Isotope and faunal evidence for high levels of freshwater fish consumption by Late Glacial humans at the Late Upper Palaeolithic site of Šandalja II, Istria, Croatia

“…We found that the isotope data from the fauna that was available for analysis and contemporary with the humans that these humans likely obtained the majority of their protein from freshwater fish, which contrasts with the site's zooarchaeological evidence for the consumption of large amounts of meat, marrow, and fat from large terrestrial mammals in the same level. Our results add to the growing evidence of increasingly intensive use of aquatic resources in the European Late Upper Palaeolithic (Gazzoni et al, 2013;Drucker et al, 2005;Mannino et al, 2011a,b), a trend we see continuing into the Mesolithic and culminating with humans depending almost entirely on marine resources in coastal northwest Europe in the Late Mesolithic period (e.g. Richards et al, 2003a,b;Fischer et al, 2007).…”

“…A single individual from the site of Grotta del Romito (Romito 9) had isotope values indicative of marine food consumption, probably in addition to regular freshwater fish consumption, with a d 13 C value of À18.9‰ and a relatively high d 15 N value of 12.4‰ (Craig et al, 2010). Similarly, a single individual from the site of Ripero Tagliente had a d 13 C value of À18.4‰, and an elevated d 15 N value of 13.0‰, also indicating likely marine food consumption in addition to freshwater fish consumption (Gazzoni et al, 2013). One individual from San Teodoro 1 had a terrestrial d 13 C value of À20‰, but an elevated d 15 N value of 12.5‰.…”

“…These comprise human remains from the Sicilian sites of Grotta d'Oriente (Mannino et al, 2012), Grotta Addaura Caprara and Grotta di San Teodoro (Mannino et al, 2011a, b), and the mainland sites of Grotta del Romito (Craig et al, 2010), Ripero Tagliente (Gazzoni et al, 2013) and Arene Candide (Francalacci, 1988). Most of these Italian Late Upper Palaeolithic humans had d 13 C values centred around À20‰ and d 15 N values close to 9‰, indicating that the source of their dietary protein was largely terrestrial, with little input from aquatic resources, despite the close proximity of a number of the sites to the coast.…”

“…15,000e12,000 BP) human remains from Western Europe have been undertaken, deriving from the UK (Richards et al, 2000(Richards et al, , 2005, France (Drucker et al, 2005;Naito et al, 2013), Spain (Garcia-Guix e et al, 2009) and Italy (Craig et al, 2010;Francalacci, 1988;Mannino et al, 2011a,b;, Gazzoni et al, 2013. To date there have been no applications to humans from this time period across much of the continent and particularly in Eastern or South East Europe.…”

Estimating C4 plant consumption in Bronze Age Northeastern Italy through stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bone collagen

“…The two species of freshwater fish analysed ( Esox Lucius and Cyprinidae ind.) yield carbon values that are coherent with earlier samples from the region (Gazzoni et al, ). In fact, the comparison between the two largest animal datasets (Olmo di Nogara and Fondo Paviani) reveals coherent values, especially for what concerns the terrestrial mammals (Figure ).…”