Introduction

Throughout the first half of the Holocene (ca. 9000-4000 cal BC) hunter-gatherers of Southern Scandinavia developed large coastal sedentary societies with economies increasingly focused on the mass capture of marine resources. With the onset of the Neolithic at ca. 4000 cal BC, coinciding with the adoption of domesticated plants and animals, human bone collagen stable isotope data shows a major dietary shift towards a greater emphasis on terrestrial resources but with archaeological evidence of the ongoing exploitation of marine resources, and in some cases intensification. A complex interaction between time trends in the human exploitation of resources, climate change, marine habitats and ecosystem structure has resulted in multiple competing and unresolved hypotheses about the long-term human impacts.

Where and how?

This work package aims to evaluate the change in marine biodiversity/ecosystem functioning prior to and, across the transition to agriculture through the analysis of faunal remains (fish and marine mammals), and marine molluscs derived from stratified shell middens and coastal settlement sites. Indeed, these sites provide an exceptional opportunity to resolve competing hypotheses by examining the changes in the composition, trophic position and size/age structure of exploited taxa. To do so, a range of cutting-edge bioarchaeology techniques, including stable isotope analysis (SIA) of bone collagen and amino acids, species identification by ZooMS, incremental growth line analysis (IGLA) and AAR-dating of marine molluscs as well as aDNA and sedaDNA analysis will be undertaken. These analyses will be complemented by freshly acquired, well-dated sediment cores from the highest-resolution marine Holocene sequence in Northwestern Europe, deposited in the Skagerrak basin north of the Jutland peninsula, and adjacent to many of the sites selected for study, and by SIA of amino acids from within marine molluscs from the sclerochronological series already assembled from the Fladen Ground.

Research into this transition poses the following questions:

• To what degree did prehistoric coastal hunter-gatherers impact on the marine environment?
• Was there a change in marine biodiversity/ecosystem functioning or the physical marine environment at this time which affected human exploitation of marine resources throughout the Early to Middle Holocene (ca. 9000-3000 cal BC), with a particular focus on the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition (ca. 4000 cal BC).
• What further impact did the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition have on marine biodiversity over this timeslice?
• Is there a change in marine biodiversity/ecosystem function at the transition from the Funnel Beaker culture (farmers) to the Pitted Ware culture (hunter-gatherer-fisher-farmers) at ca. 3100 cal BC associated with the resumption of major marine exploitation.