Origin and Diet of the Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers on the Mediterranean Island of Favignana (Ègadi Islands, Sicily)

Abstract

Hunter-gatherers living in Europe during the transition from the late Pleistocene to the Holocene intensified food acquisition by broadening the range of resources exploited to include marine taxa. However, little is known on the nature of this dietary change in the Mediterranean Basin. A key area to investigate this issue is the archipelago of the Ègadi Islands, most of which were connected to Sicily until the early Holocene. The site of Grotta d’Oriente, on the present-day island of Favignana, was occupied by hunter-gatherers when Postglacial environmental changes were taking place (14,000-7,500 cal BP). Here we present the results of AMS radiocarbon dating, palaeogenetic and isotopic analyses undertaken on skeletal remains of the humans buried at Grotta d’Oriente. Analyses of the mitochondrial hypervariable first region of individual Oriente B, which belongs to the HV-1 haplogroup, suggest for the first time on genetic grounds that humans living in Sicily during the early Holocene could have originated from groups that migrated from the Italian Peninsula around the Last Glacial Maximum. Carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses show that the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of Favignana consumed almost exclusively protein from terrestrial game and that there was only a slight increase in marine food consumption from the late Pleistocene to the early Holocene. This dietary change was similar in scale to that at sites on mainland Sicily and in the rest of the Mediterranean, suggesting that the hunter-gatherers of Grotta d’Oriente did not modify their subsistence strategies specifically to adapt to the progressive isolation of Favignana. The limited development of technologies for intensively exploiting marine resources was probably a consequence both of Mediterranean oligotrophy and of the small effective population size of these increasingly isolated human groups, which made innovation less likely and prevented transmission of fitness-enhancing adaptations.

Changing patterns of eastern Mediterranean shellfish exploitation in the Late Glacial and Early Holocene: Oxygen isotope evidence from gastropod in Epipaleolithic to Neolithic human occupation layers at the Haua Fteah cave, Libya

“…This can be seen from stable isotope analyses of bone collagen from various Mediterranean archaeological sites, which generally suggest little or no marine food consumption (e.g. Paine et al, 2009;Craig et al, 2010;Lightfoot et al, 2011;Mannino et al, 2011Mannino et al, , 2012. Although, regional variability exists as at some sites in the western Mediterranean, the contribution of marine resources to the diet at this time is estimated to be as high as 25% (Guixe' et al, 2006).…”

Isotope and faunal evidence for high levels of freshwater fish consumption by Late Glacial humans at the Late Upper Palaeolithic site of Šandalja II, Istria, Croatia

“…These comprise human remains from the Sicilian sites of Grotta d'Oriente (Mannino et al, 2012), Grotta Addaura Caprara and Grotta di San Teodoro (Mannino et al, 2011a, b), and the mainland sites of Grotta del Romito (Craig et al, 2010), Ripero Tagliente (Gazzoni et al, 2013) and Arene Candide (Francalacci, 1988). Most of these Italian Late Upper Palaeolithic humans had d 13 C values centred around À20‰ and d 15 N values close to 9‰, indicating that the source of their dietary protein was largely terrestrial, with little input from aquatic resources, despite the close proximity of a number of the sites to the coast.…”

The Grotta di Cala dei Genovesi – New studies on the Ice Age cave art on Sicily

“…In the 1980s, an analysis of the Late Upper Palaeolithic-Mesolithic stratigraphy recorded during Graziosi's 1953 excavation and the associated lithic artefacts and osteological material was presented by A. Vigliardi, who 33 Mannino et al 2011;Mannino et al 2012b. 34 E.g.…”

“…31 Tusa 1999 Martini 2007. 32 Lo Vetro/Martini 2006Mannino et al 2011;2012b. Brought to you by | Western University Authenticated Download Date | 6/7/15 4:47 AMFig. 3: Late Glacial to early Holocene chronostratigraphy of Sicily with general information on the environment and important sites Brought to you by | Western University Authenticated Download Date | 6/7/15 4:47 AM…”