High-resolution evidence for dietary changes during the Late Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic in Europe

The study of past diets in archaeology has often used bone collagen stable isotope analysis (SIA) as a key method to address questions of dietary changes through time. However, this method is limited, as it relies on the average carbon and nitrogen isotope values of the amino acids in collagen, so it only provides a broad measure of past diets. Compound-specific isotope analysis of individual collagen amino acids (CSIA-AA) has emerged as a high-resolution tool to overcome these limitations, but its application in archaeological research has been limited so far, emphasizing the necessity for more studies to establish interpretative frameworks and paleodietary baselines. This thesis aims to expand the use of CSIA-AA, employing it in cases where bulk tissue SIA results are ambiguous, such as aquatic resource consumption in human diets. This thesis consists of three projects. Through the use of CSIA-AA, the first project addresses the ambiguity related to freshwater fish consumption by Late Upper Paleolithic humans at Šandalja II (Croatia), where zooarchaeological evidence conflicts with previous SIA results indicating significant freshwater resource consumption. The second project examines Mesolithic and Neolithic human diets at Franchthi Cave (Greece) using CSIA-AA and revealing the limitations of bulk SIA in overestimating the marine component in the diet in Mediterranean contexts. The third project explores dietary practices during the Meso-Neolithic transition in Scotland using CSIA-AA, challenging conventional notions of a rapid shift to a terrestrial-based diet. These projects collectively demonstrate the value of CSIA-AA in identifying low to moderate aquatic resource consumption, filling gaps left by traditional SIA methods. The findings from these investigations demonstrate that CSIA-AA serves as a valuable tool for detecting the consumption of low to moderate amounts of aquatic resources in human diets, information that was unavailable when relying solely on bulk collagen SIA alone.