Bownes, Jessica (2018) Reassessing the Scottish Mesolithic-Neolithic transition: questions of diet and chronology. PhD thesis. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/8911/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] REASSESSING THE SCOTTISH MESOLITHIC- NEOLITHIC TRANSITION: QUESTIONS OF DIET AND CHRONOLOGY Jessica Bownes BA(hons), MSc, FSA Scot MARCH 24, 2018 SUBMITTED IN FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY SUERC | College of Science and Engineering | University of Glasgow I declare that, except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, that this dissertation is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree at the University of Glasgow or any other institution. Printed Name: __________________________ Signature: ______________________________ i Acknowledgements There is a long list of people I need thank for their contributions to this work. First and foremost are my supervisors, Dr Philippa Ascough, Professor Gordon Cook and Dr Iona Murray. I must also thank the AHRC and Historic Environment Scotland for funding this research. To the SUERC Radiocarbon staff - Elaine, Phil, Brian, Kerry and the technicians - thank you for putting up with me while I hammered bones into tiny pieces and covered myself in blood and bone marrow. I am also grateful to Ricardo Fernandes, the creator of FRUITS, for providing so much helpful training and advice on the programme. Samples for this research were kindly provided by Alison Sheridan of National Museums Scotland, Jane Flint of Glasgow Museums Research Centre, Clive Bonsall of the University of Edinburgh, Cath parker, Sheena Fraser, Julie Dougans, and Historic Environment Scotland. Thank you to my colleagues at LEADS, especially to Jennifer, Andrew, Scott, Iro and Elina, for the help and support while I wrote up my thesis. It was a pleasure to work with my fellow PhD students during my time at SUERC. Sevi, Pete, Ana and Ross. The mutual support between us all was invaluable. Seriously guys. Finally, a special thank you to Helen Kinch for being Helen Kinch, to Iain Murdoch for going over and above the call of duty of a laboratory technician, and to my Mum for giving birth to me so that I could eventually write this thesis. This thesis is dedicated to my Dad and my Gramps who always nurtured my love for learning. ii Abstract The purpose of this research was to broaden our knowledge of the dietary changes and timing of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Scotland. Despite the rich number of archaeological sites around mainland Scotland and the Orkney Isles that date to the transition period (c.4000 to 3600 BC), bones of humans and especially of fauna are rarely recovered. This lack of skeletal material necessary to investigate individual human diet has resulted in a gap in our understanding about dietary changes that occurred during the transition from a hunter- gatherer lifestyle to farming. One of the most widely used and reliable scientific tools available to investigate ancient diet is δ13C and δ15N isotope analysis; however, this technique requires samples of human bone and also a representative sample of bones from animals from the same spatial and chronological context as the humans to form an isotopic baseline. Studies of dietary change during the Scottish Mesolithic-Neolithic transition so far have largely relied on poor quality baselines to interpret the diets of the relatively small number of humans recovered from this period. A solution was therefore required in order to ensure that interpretations of dietary change during this time that employed stable isotope analysis of bone collagen were better defined and more secure. In addition to the problems of interpreting changes in the diet, there are questions surrounding the timing of the Scottish Mesolithic-Neolithic transition as well. The dietary changes were characterised by replacing marine protein with terrestrial animal protein, however we are uncertain as to how fast and complete this shift in diet was. There is long- standing debate regarding how important marine protein was in the early Neolithic diet. If marine protein was only a minor component of the diet, this would be undetected by traditional interpretations of stable isotope data. However, the radiocarbon ages of the bone collagen of these humans may be affected by oceanic 14C. Ancient marine derived carbon in human bone collagen is on average c.400 years older than terrestrial carbon, resulting in the need to correct the ages of mixed marine/terrestrial samples for this Marine Reservoir Effect. Undetected marine protein in the Neolithic diet would result in human bones being assigned radiocarbon dates that are older than the true age of the sample. An improved method of interpreting stable isotope data from bone collagen was therefore sought to address these questions of timing in the Scottish Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. δ13C, δ15N and δ34S isotope analysis was employed on human and faunal bones from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites predominantly in Orkney and the west coast of Scotland. iii Isotope faunal baselines were supplemented, where appropriate, with modern faunal samples. The abundance of marine and terrestrial resources in the human diet was modelled using the Bayesian mixing model, FRUITS (food reconstruction using isotopic transferred signals). Where marine protein was detected in the human diet, the radiocarbon dates of these samples were calibrated using the mixed marine/terrestrial radiocarbon calibration curve and compared against previously calculated dates, where these were available. It was possible to supplement marine faunal isotope baselines with modern marine samples; however, modern terrestrial samples were unsuitable analogues. δ34S was also found to be an unsuitable proxy for diet in this research. Small amounts of dietary marine protein were detected in the majority of Neolithic humans; however, marine consumption did not have a significant effect on the radiocarbon dates of these individuals. The key finding of this research was, therefore, that the transition from the Mesolithic lifestyle to the Neolithic in Scotland was a lengthy and gradual process, contributing to the debate regarding the nature of the transition. The chronology of the transition that has been previously established by radiocarbon dating is secure: while modelling the isotope data in FRUITS resulted, in most cases, in a greater age range in calibrated radiocarbon dates, they were not erroneously old, as initially predicted. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... ii Abstract ................................................................................................................................ iii List of Figures ...................................................................................................................... ix List of Tables...................................................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Research aims and objectives ....................................................................................... 1 1.3 Thesis outline ............................................................................................................... 3 Chapter 2: The Nature and Timing of the Mesolithic and Neolithic Periods in Europe and Scotland .................................................................................................................................. 4 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 4 2.2 Defining the Mesolithic and Neolithic Periods ............................................................ 5 2.2.1 Towards a definition of the Mesolithic period....................................................... 5 2.2.2 Defining the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition ......................................................... 6 2.2.3 Defining the Neolithic period in Scotland ............................................................. 8 2.3 Drivers of the Transition ............................................................................................ 10 2.3.1 Climate change as a driver of the transition ........................................................ 10 2.3.2 Cultural change as a driver of the transition ........................................................ 13 2.4 Evidence of dietary change in the Scottish Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition ............. 17 2.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................