Touch not the fish: the Mesolithic-Neolithic change of diet and its significance

Richards, M.P.; Schulting, R.

doi:10.1017/s0003598x00093765

Touch not the fish: the Mesolithic-Neolithic change of diet and its significance

Richards, M.P.; Schulting, R.

Authors

M.P. Richards

R. Schulting

Abstract

Stable isotope analysis has startled the archaeological community by showing a rapid and widespread change from a marine to terrestrial diet (ie from fish to domesticated plants and animals) as people moved from a Mesolithic to a Neolithic culture. This could be a consequence of domestication, or as Julian Thomas (2003) proposed, of a kind of taboo (‘Touch not the fish’). In a key challenge, Nicky Milner and her colleagues (2004) questioned the reality of this nutritional revolution, contrasting the message of the bones and shells found on settlement sites, with the isotope measurements in the bones of people. Here Mike Richards and Rick Schulting, champions of the diet-revolution, strongly reinforce the arguments. The change was real, it seems: so what does it mean? Milner and colleagues respond.

Citation

Richards, M., & Schulting, R. (2006). Touch not the fish: the Mesolithic-Neolithic change of diet and its significance. Antiquity, 80(308), 444-456. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00093765

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Jun 1, 2006
Deposit Date	Jul 20, 2009
Publicly Available Date	Jun 24, 2011
Journal	Antiquity
Print ISSN	0003-598X
Electronic ISSN	1745-1744
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	80
Issue	308
Pages	444-456
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00093765
Keywords	Northern Europe, Mesolithic, Stable isotopes, Diet, Taboo.