Coastal Landscapes of the Mesolithic: Human Engagement with the Coast from the Atlantic to the Baltic Sea explores the character and significance of coastal landscapes in the Mesolithic – on ...different scales and with various theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Mesolithic people were strongly connected to the sea, with coastal areas vital for subsistence and communication across the water. This anthology includes case studies from Scandinavia, western Europe and the Baltic area, presented by key international researchers. Topics addressed include large-scale analyses of the archaeological and geological development of coastal areas, the exploration of coastal environments with interdisciplinary methods, the discussion of the character of coastal settlements and of their possible networks, social and economic practices along the coast, as well as perceptions and cosmological aspects of coastal areas. Together, these topics and approaches contribute in an innovative way to the understanding of the complexity of topographically changing coastal areas as both border zones between land and sea and as connecting landscapes. Providing novel insights into the study of the Mesolithic as well as coastal areas and landscapes in general, the book is an important resource for researchers of the Mesolithic and coastal archaeology.
This work is conceived like a state of the art on recent hunter-gatherers documented in the western end of the Cantabrian area. In it we have included deposits and other evidences ascribed at the end ...of the Upper Palaeolithic and at the Epipaleolithic-Mesolithic.
Coastal Landscapes of the Mesolithic: Human Engagement with the Coast from the Atlantic to the Baltic Sea explores the character and significance of coastal landscapes in the Mesolithic – on ...different scales and with various theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Mesolithic people were strongly connected to the sea, with coastal areas vital for subsistence and communication across the water. This anthology includes case studies from Scandinavia, western Europe and the Baltic area, presented by key international researchers. Topics addressed include large-scale analyses of the archaeological and geological development of coastal areas, the exploration of coastal environments with interdisciplinary methods, the discussion of the character of coastal settlements and of their possible networks, social and economic practices along the coast, as well as perceptions and cosmological aspects of coastal areas. Together, these topics and approaches contribute in an innovative way to the understanding of the complexity of topographically changing coastal areas as both border zones between land and sea and as connecting landscapes. Providing novel insights into the study of the Mesolithic as well as coastal areas and landscapes in general, the book is an important resource for researchers of the Mesolithic and coastal archaeology.
Debate on the ancestry of Europeans centers on the interplay between Mesolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers. Foragers are generally believed to have disappeared shortly after the arrival of ...agriculture. To investigate the relation between foragers and farmers, we examined Mesolithic and Neolithic samples from the Blätterhöhle site. Mesolithic mitochondrial DNA sequences were typical of European foragers, whereas the Neolithic sample included additional lineages that are associated with early farmers. However, isotope analyses separate the Neolithic sample into two groups: one with an agriculturalist diet and one with a forager and freshwater fish diet, the latter carrying mitochondrial DNA sequences typical of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. This indicates that the descendants of Mesolithic people maintained a foraging lifestyle in Central Europe for more than 2000 years after the arrival of farming societies.
Current knowledge about the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the Central and Western Mediterranean European regions is deeply limited by the paucity of Late Mesolithic human osteological data and ...the presence of chronological gaps covering several centuries between the last foragers and the first archaeological evidence of farming peoples. In this work, we present new data to fill these gaps. We provide direct AMS radiocarbon dating and carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope analysis were carried out on bone collagen samples of two single burials from the recently discovered open-air Late Mesolithic site of Casa Corona (Villena, Spain). The results shed new light on the chronology and subsistence patterns of the last Mesolithic communities in the Central Mediterranean region of the Iberian Peninsula. Radiocarbon results date the human remains and funerary activity of the site to 6059–5849 cal BC, statistically different from other Late Mesolithic sites and the earliest Neolithic contexts, and bridging the 500 yrs chronological gap of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition from the area. Isotopic evidence shows that diet was based on terrestrial resources despite the proximity to the site of lagoon and marine ecosystems. This and previous isotope studies from the region suggest a lower reliance upon marine resources than for Atlantic and Cantabrian sites, although intra-regional patterns of neighbouring Mesolithic populations exhibit both fully terrestrial diets and diets with significant amounts of aquatic resources in them. We hypothesize that in the Central Mediterranean region of Spain the Late Mesolithic dietary adaptations imposed structural limits on demographic growth of the last foragers and favoured rapid assimilation by the earliest Neolithic populations.
► Casa Corona, a recently discovered site with Late Mesolithic burials in Eastern Spain. ► Direct AMS radiocarbon dating of Late Mesolithic human remains. ► Carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope analysis. ► Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Eastern Spain.
In response to the comment by Crombé and Langohr (2020) on our micromorphological study of Mesolithic pit hearths, we argue that these features are most likely anthropogenic in origin, and that it is ...therefore unlikely that they are the remains of burned ant nests. Arguments for an anthropogenic origin centre around (1) their regional and temporal distribution, (2) their spatial distribution within archaeological sites, (3) their charcoal spectrum and (4) the presence of cultural remains in the pits. We argue that the absence of fire-related features and apparent discrepancies in dating can be attributed to site-formation and taphonomic processes. Finally, we indicate that, due to a lack of actual observations of the subsurface morphology of burned ant nests, it is impossible to make a valid comparison. Based on the existing literature on ant nests fires, we come to a different model of this morphology than do Crombé and Langohr (2020). We conclude that these pit hearths form an important component of the Mesolithic archaeological record and that new research into their formation and their use may shed more light on their origin and purpose.
•Mesolithic hearth pits are anthropogenic in origin, and are not remains of burned ant nests.•Their spatio-temporal distribution indicate cultural factors and do not match natural processes.•Charred organic remains in the pits do not match the natural habitat of pine-forest dwelling ants.•The morphology and composition of ants nests makes it highly unlikely that fires would produce deep, charcoal-rich pits.•Discrepancies in dating of charred remains from these pits should be interpreted in the light of reworking or intrusion.
The transition in north-west Europe from the hunter–gatherer societies of the Late Mesolithic to the pioneer farming societies of the early Neolithic is not well understood, either culturally or ...palaeoecologically. In Britain the final transition was rapid but it is unclear whether novel Neolithic attributes were introduced by immigrants who supplanted the native hunter–gatherers, or whether the latest Mesolithic foragers gradually adopted elements of the Neolithic economic package. In this study, relatively coarse- (10 mm interval) and fine-resolution (2 mm), multi-proxy palaeoecological data including pollen, charcoal and NPPs including fungi, have been used to investigate two phases of vegetation disturbance of (a) distinctly Late Mesolithic and (b) early Neolithic age, at an upland site in northern England in a region with both a Neolithic and a Late Mesolithic archaeological presence. We identify and define the palaeoecological characteristics of these two disturbance phases, about a millennium apart, in order to investigate whether differing land-use techniques can be identified and categorised as of either foraging or early farming cultures. The Late Mesolithic phase is defined by the repetitive application of fire to the woodland to encourage a mosaic of productive vegetation regeneration patches, consistent with the promotion of Corylus and to aid hunting. In this phase, weed species including Plantago lanceolata, Rumex and Chenopodiaceae are frequent, taxa which are normally associated with the first farmers. The early Neolithic phase, including an Ulmus decline, has characteristics consistent with ‘forest farming’, possibly mainly for domestic livestock, with an inferred succession of tree girdling, fire-prepared cultivation, and coppice-woodland management. Such fine-resolution, potentially diagnostic land-use signatures may in future be used to recognise the cultural complexion of otherwise enigmatic woodland disturbance phases during the centuries of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition.
•We compare Late Mesolithic and early Neolithic palaeoecology from the same peat site.•Fine resolution pollen, non-pollen palynomorph and AMS radiocarbon analyses are used.•Differences in ground flora, event duration and lasting impacts can be distinguished.•Assuming human origin, this suggests changed cultural activity in the early Neolithic.•There is continuing evidence for the use of fire and the presence of grazing animals.
The Northern European Mesolithic is well known for the manufacture of composite tools and weapons for specialised purposes. A composite implement recovered from the Early Holocene site of Krzyż ...Wielkopolski 7 in Poland, dated to the Preboreal/Boreal transition, raises questions about expediency versus efficiency in the fabrication of these artefacts. Here, the authors characterise its materials and production: a bone splinter mounted on a shaft of pine wood, secured with bast ligatures coated in birch bark tar. While the manufacture of the implement's individual components can be characterised as ‘expedient’, the finished implement is, however, complex, efficient and durable.
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