Harvesting the Seashores in the Late Mesolithic of Northwestern Europe: A View From Brittany

Abstract

The shell middens of Brittany provide the last evidence of a Mesolithic way of life along the French Atlantic facade. This is partly a result of Holocene marine transgressions that prevent easy access to earlier coastal settlements. Nevertheless, the dependence on the sea seen in the Late Mesolithic seems to be a consequence of a long-established exploitation system. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope signatures in human bone reflect a dominance of marine protein, while the zooarchaeological components of shell middens show a high species richness of exploited marine resources. Paleoenvironmental reconstruction suggests that more or less the whole range of resources exploited was accessible in the immediate vicinity of the sites. Seasonal aspects of the utilised and potentially available subsistence resources, along with stable isotope and lithic data, raise the possibility of restricted mobility for these populations, within relatively limited territories. The impression of extreme dependence of these coastal populations on the seashore might have been a key factor in their final disappearance, whether this is viewed as replacement or acculturation. Indeed, the Mesolithic communities of Brittany could have been caught between rising sea-levels and the arrival of Neolithic communities from the east and the south.