The origins and significance of coastal resource use in Africa and Western Eurasia

The transition to foraging for dense and predictable resources and its impact on the evolution of modern humans

“…Elsewhere I have suggested that once this happened, early modern humans could recognize the relationship between lunar cycles, tidal systems and their productivity, and thus design symbolic calendar systems that allowed them to time their visits to the coast so as to make productive use of the coastal zone [65,66,72]. I made a distinction between rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org Phil.…”

Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade, and the Colonization of Small Offshore Islands in Eastern African Prehistory

“…For example, Beaton (1995:801-802) and Marean (2014:20) distinguish between coastal use, where marine resources are exploited systematically, regularly, and recurrently, but do not necessarily transform lifeways, and coastal adaptations, where economies, mobility, and settlement structures have been transformed to revolve around marine environments and the inter-tidal zone in particular. Building on these points, Marean (2014) views maritime adaptations as those incorporating marine resource use via boat technology capable of long-distance transport, deep-sea fishing, and whaling. Fleisher et al (2015) extend this type of definition to include not just maritime resource exploitation, technology, trade, and communication, but also the notion of socio-cultural structures influenced by the maritime environment.…”

“…In eastern Africa, it has often been assumed that marine resources were secondary in importance to terrestrial foods in coastal diets until at least the seventh century AD (i.e., MIA), with earlier coastal communities practicing only opportunistic harvesting of marine products (Breen and Lane 2003:475) rather than extensive or even systematic exploitation (as in the Beaton [1995] and Marean [2014] definitions highlighted above). The archaeological data from Juani is nonetheless indicative of a fairly rapid local adaptation to a nearshore marine environment involving an initial systematic focus on wild, readily available resources (especially fishing and shellfish gathering) in place of agriculture and domesticates, and reflecting a specific coastal adaptation during this phase of island colonization and occupation (similar to that proposed for many of the Remote Pacific islands and island southeast Asia (e.g., Anderson and O'Connor 2008;Bulbeck 2008).…”

Gradual decline in mobility with the adoption of food production in Europe

“…When and why declining mobility occurred has profound implications for reconstructing past population history and health, but it has proven difficult to characterize archaeologically. In this study we evaluate temporal trends in relative strength of the upper and lower limb bones in a sample of 1,842 individuals from across Europe extending from the Upper Paleolithic [11,,000 calibrated years (Cal y) B.P.] through the 20th century.…”

“…Reductions in mechanical loading of the skeleton associated with a more sedentary lifestyle may have contributed to the etiology of modern skeletal disorders such as osteoporosis (8)(9)(10). Declines in mobility also had significant effects on sociopolitical organization, including sexual division of labor, social hierarchy, and territoriality (1,11,12). However, despite its broad evolutionary significance, the timing and patterning of declining mobility during the Holocene and its relationship to changing subsistence economies has proven difficult to characterize from material archaeological remains (1,5,7,13,14), leaving many unanswered questions.…”