Pottery was adopted by hunter-gatherers in the Eastern Baltic at the end of the 6th millennium cal BC. To examine the motivations for this cultural and technological shift, here we report the organic residue analysis of ceramic vessels from the earliest pottery horizon (Narva) in this region. A combined approach using GC-MS, GC-C-IRMS and bulk IRMS of residues absorbed into the ceramic and charred surface deposits was employed. The results show that despite variable preservation, Narva ceramic vessels were preferentially used for processing aquatic products. We argue that pottery was part of a new Late Mesolithic subsistence strategy which included more intensive exploitation of aquatic foods and may have had important implications, such as increased sedentism and population growth.

Chinese history from the Eastern Zhou to the Han Dynasty (770BCE to 220CE) witnessed a social transition from conflicting territorial states to a prosperous empire. This study investigates the effects of social changes on human diet using stable isotope analysis. Human remains (n=134) and contemporary faunal remains (n=14) from three sites located on the Central Plains of China were analyzed, and the results have shed light on human diets in the two different eras. Most individuals of the Eastern Zhou had diets based on millet and a limited amount of animal protein. The poor ate a significant amount of wheat, which may have been a response to the food pressures of their urban environment. Wheat consumption in the Han Dynasty increased significantly, likely in response to a population increase during the early imperial period, and patterns of animal protein consumption also differed from that of the Eastern Zhou. Status-related dietary variation in the two eras was reflected in the amount of wheat eaten rather than animal protein consumption. The dietary changes seen likely reflect both adaptive strategy and active change, and seem to have benefited human health in the following dynasties. The results also indicate that significant wheat consumption started in the lowest social classes, suggesting a bottom-up mode for the adoption of wheat into human diets of the area.

In contrast to the coastal areas of the Iberian Peninsula, the Upper Palaeolithic settlement of central Iberia, dominated by the Spanish plateau, is poorly known. Traditional models assume a total or virtual depopulation of the interior of the Iberian Peninsula during the Last Glacial. In this paper we present a detailed investigation of human-environment interactions through the first zooarchaeological, taphonomic and isotopic study of the key site of Peña Capón, a rock shelter located in the south-eastern foothills of the Central System range that contains a multi-layered deposit dated to marine isotope stage 2 (MIS 2). Analyses of the faunal assemblages of the Proto-Solutrean (3) and Middle Solutrean (2) layers show that human preferentially hunted horse, deer and iberian ibex living in the vicinity of the rock shelter. Isotope geochemistry of the animal remains of Peña Capón provides us with the first detailed intra-tooth multi-proxy analysis for this time period in south-western Europe, providing estimates of climatic conditions, seasonal flucturation of diet, as well as patterns of seasonal mobility. Our results indicate that human presence at Peña Capón was apparently restricted to relatively warm intervals around the LGM or reflects the presence of an ecological refuge, and provide us with evidence of recurrent human presence in the Iberian interior during the Upper Paleolithic prior to the Magdalenian.

This paper discusses the first stable isotope evidence of diet from Protopalatial to Neopalatial Knossos on Crete to reconstruct individual long-term dietary records for people from the site, spanning the period circa 1900 to 1600BC. The aim is to shed light onto the lifeways and social organization of the respective communities, and to investigate people's everyday life for evidence of the site's politico-economic supremacy in the Neopalatial period. Eighty-one human and 12 animal individuals from two Palatial cemeteries at Knossos were sampled for cortical bone and the extracted collagen was analyzed for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios to trace relative proportions of (broad categories of) foodstuffs that they consumed on a day-to-day basis. The human collagen stable isotope signatures follow a broad distribution that reflects a range of diets, where animal protein, including marine in addition to terrestrial, was consumed at different levels. Faunal isotope values from the site are consistent with a terrestrial C3 trophic context with apparently no C4 protein input. The observed dietary variation in the human stable isotope ratios shows no clear sex-, tomb-, or cemetery-pattern; it rather follows a temporal trend that is in tune with contemporary socio-economic and political developments and the increasing prosperity of Knossos in the period investigated. Moreover, the study yielded the first positive human palaeodietary evidence for marine food consumption in Prehistoric Crete.

The analysis of the human remains from the megalithic tomb at Alto de Reinoso represents the widest integrative study of a Neolithic collective burial in Spain. Combining archaeology, osteology, molecular genetics and stable isotope analysis (87Sr/86Sr, δ15N, δ13C) it provides a wealth of information on the minimum number of individuals, age, sex, body height, pathologies, mitochondrial DNA profiles, kinship relations, mobility, and diet. The grave was in use for approximately one hundred years around 3700 cal BC, thus dating from the Late Neolithic of the Iberian chronology. At the bottom of the collective tomb, six complete and six partial skeletons lay in anatomically correct positions. Above them, further bodies represented a subsequent and different use of the tomb, with almost all of the skeletons exhibiting signs of manipulation such as missing skeletal parts, especially skulls. The megalithic monument comprised at least 47 individuals, including males, females, and subadults, although children aged 0–6 years were underrepresented. The skeletal remains exhibited a moderate number of pathologies, such as degenerative joint diseases, healed fractures, cranial trauma, and a low intensity of caries. The mitochondrial DNA profiles revealed a pattern pointing to a closely related local community with matrilineal kinship patterns. In some cases adjacent individuals in the bottom layer showed familial relationships. According to their strontium isotope ratios, only a few individuals were likely to have spent their early childhood in a different geological environment, whilst the majority of individuals grew up locally. Carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis, which was undertaken to reconstruct the dietary habits, indicated that this was a homogeneous group with egalitarian access to food. Cereals and small ruminants were the principal sources of nutrition. These data fit in well with a lifestyle typical of sedentary farming populations in the Spanish Meseta during this period of the Neolithic.

Bitumen was found to occur on archaeological potsherds collected from two Apulia Middle Bronze Age sites, Monopoli and Torre Santa Sabina (Italy). Bitumen from two different areas, Majella (Italy) and Selenicë (Albania), were analyzed as potential reference samples to assess the geographic origin of the archaeological bitumen using geochemical analytical techniques. Analysis of the archaeological samples from different layers at both sites showed that the bitumen possesses the same gross composition and biomarker distribution patterns. Sterane and terpane profiles from the archaeological samples were very similar to some of the geological samples collected from Selenicë. In both archeological and selected Selenicë samples, sterane distributions were dominated by the C29 homologues (46–54%), followed by the C27 (26–33%) and C28 homologues (ca. 21%). Other biomarkers, such as gammacerane and oleanane, as well as the stable carbon isotopic composition of the asphaltene fraction, also suggest that the bitumen from the two archaeological sites was imported from Albania during Middle Bronze Age.

Tabon Cave is a key site for the understanding of modern human dispersals in the Philippine archipelago and Island Southeast Asia. Nestled in the karst landscape that borders the southwestern coast of Palawan, it has delivered the earliest confirmed Homo sapiens remains in the Philippines dating to the late Pleistocene, as far back as around 47 ka. Among other methods, the broad characteristics of the environment in which these humans once lived may be drawn using stable isotope analysis of the rich guano deposits in the cave, an approach that follows a growing number of studies indicating the potential of guano as a palaeoenvironmental archive. δ13C values reveal the general prevalence of C3 forest tempered by savannah woodland with grassland contributions both well before and slightly after a securely-dated fireplace at 32 ka; the lower interval would refer to OIS 3 or older interglacial periods, while the upper interval would refer to the transition either before or after the Last Glacial Maximum. No useful conclusions are drawn from δ15N results due to suspected ammonia fractionation. Pending future dating efforts for confirmation, this preliminary study contributes to the development of an alternative and promising palaeoenvironmental proxy and hopes to shed further light on the prehistoric odysseys that took place across Island Southeast Asia.