Stable isotope evidence for increasing dietary breadth in the European mid-Upper Paleolithic

New carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values for human remains dating to the mid-Upper Paleolithic in Europe indicate significant amounts of aquatic (fish, mollusks, and/or birds) foods in some of their diets. Most of this evidence points to exploitation of inland freshwater aquatic resources in particular. By contrast, European Neandertal collagen carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values do not indicate significant use of inland aquatic foods but instead show that they obtained the majority of their protein from terrestrial herbivores. In agreement with recent zooarcheological analyses, the isotope results indicate shifts toward a more broad-spectrum subsistence economy in inland Europe by the mid-Upper Paleolithic period, probably associated with significant population increases

Radiocarbon dating, mineralogy, and isotopic composition of hackberry endocarps from the Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük, central Turkey

Carbonate is abundant in many Neolithic tells and is a potentially useful archive for dating and climate reconstruction. In this paper, we focus on the mineralogy, radiocarbon dating, and stable isotope systematics of carbonate in hackberry endocarps. Hackberry fruits and seeds are edible in fresh and stored forms, and they were consumed in large quantities in many Neolithic sites in the Near East, including the site of our study, Aşıkli Höyük in central Anatolia, an Aceramic Neolithic tell occupied from about 9.4 to > 10.3 BP (7.4 to > 8.3 BCE). Detailed 14C age control provided by archaeological charcoal permits a test of the fidelity in 14C dating of hackberry endocarps. Modern endocarps and leaves yield fraction modern 14C values of 1.050–1.066, consistent with levels present in the atmosphere when sampled in 2009. On the other hand, archaeological endocarps yield consistently younger ages than associated charcoal by ca. 130 14C years (ca. 220 calendar years) for samples about 10,000 years old. We speculate this is caused by the slight addition of calcite or recrystallization to calcite in the endocarp, as detected by scanning electron microscopy. Subtle addition or replacement of calcite by primary aragonite is not widely recognized in the 14C community, even though similar effects are reported from other natural carbonates such as shell carbonate. This small (but consistent) level of contamination supports the usefulness of endocarps in dating where other materials like charcoal are lacking. Before dating, however, hackberries should be carefully screened for mineralogical preservation and context. We examined the carbon and oxygen isotopic systematics of the fossil endocarps to try to establish potential source areas for harvesting. Most of the hackberries are enriched in 18O compared to local water sources, indicating that they were drawing on highly evaporated soil water, rather than the local (perched and regional) water table sampled in our study. Isotopic evidence therefore suggests that most but not all of the hackberries were harvested from nearby mesas well above the local streams and seeps fed by the water table.Center for Mediterranean Archaeology and the Environment (CMATE) Special Issue, Joint publication of Radiocarbon and Tree-Ring Research, also cited as Quade, J., Li, S., Stiner, M., Clark, A., Mentzer, S., & Özbaşaran, M. (2014). Radiocarbon Dating, Mineralogy, and Isotopic Composition of Hackberry Endocarps from the Neolithic Site of Aşikli Höyük, Central Turkey.This item is part of the Tree-Ring Research (formerly Tree-Ring Bulletin) archive. For more information about this peer-reviewed scholarly journal, please email the Editor of Tree-Ring Research at [email protected]

The Rhafas Cave (Morocco): Chronology of the mousterian and aterian archaeological occupations and their implications for Quaternary geochronology based on luminescence (TL/OSL) age determinations

The Middle Palaeolithic chronology of the Maghreb region of North Africa is poorly known because of the paucity of sites with a long stratigraphy and the limited number of available radiometric dates. In this paper, we report the age-estimates obtained by the TL and OSL methods on sediments and burnt lithic samples from the Rhafas Cave in Eastern Morocco. Our results indicate that the Mousterian is largely earlier than 100 ka, that the latest Mousterian dates to OIS 5 between 90–80 ka and the Mousterian to Aterian transition occurred about 70–80 ka, at the end of OIS 5 or during OIS 4. These dates will be most useful in the construction of a chronological framework of this unique sequence and for the interpretation of paleoenvironmental information

Lagomorph predation represented in a middle Palaeolithic level of the Navalmaíllo Rock Shelter site (Pinilla del Valle, Spain), as inferred via a new use of classical taphonomic criteria

Lagomorph remains at Pleistocene sites may accumulate through the action of hominins, raptors or carnivores. Actualistic studies have described reliable taphonomic indicators that allow human and non-human involvement in such accumulations to be distinguished. However, discriminating between possible animal predators is not easy, because the prey remnants they leave may undergo the same kinds of taphonomic transformation. The main aim of the present work was to identify the agent, human or non-human, that accumulated the lagomorph remains at the Navalmaíllo Rock Shelter site (Pinilla del Valle, Madrid). For this, 1) established taphonomic criteria, such as anatomical representation, were taken into account, 2) the presence of infant lagomorphs was examined by determining the age of the individual animals, 3) and coprolite remains adhered to fossils were identified. This new use of the latter two criteria aided in the identification of the predator responsible for the accumulation of remains. The results suggest that this was a small carnivore, probably an Iberian lynx