Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: This wide-ranging review of prehistoric shell-fishing on the South African coast is a fascinating read and raises several important issues of local and global importance.Over nearly two decades, Jerardino has championed a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches to site formation processes in coastal shell middens, including ties to technology and variation in site function.She shows through this approach and a review of others' work in South Africa that the archaeological record of shell-fishing is a window on to something far more interesting and nuanced than the mere presence or absence of shellfish in human diets.In the interest of pushing the discussion farther still, I shall be provocative by raising a handful of issues for additional consideration.Two issues that relate specifically to the earliest known records of shellfish exploitation in South Africa and the Mediterranean Basin are the geological obstacles to comparing the deep history of coastal occupations in distant regions and what early variations in shellfish exploitation may imply about hominid cognitive abilities.As Jerardino recognizes, geological data on sea level and shoreline changes suggest that much of the archaeological record is now submerged or has been lost to erosion associated with marine transgression.The "earliest" demonstrated case of shellfish exploitation in the Mediterranean Basin dates to about 110,000 years ago, during the early Middle Paleolithic (MP), at the site of Grotta dei Moscerini on the coast of west-central Italy (Stiner, 1994: 180-192).Is this when hominids first looked to marine environments for food?The fact that archaeological sites containing the remains of edible shellfish (e.g.limpets, mussels, oysters and turbans) tend to form close to the coast presents us with a problem.Today's interglacial conditions have created high shorelines in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, not unlike the situation during MIS 5. Coastal sites dating to cooler climate phases, includ-On matters of precocity and scale
Author: Mary C. Stiner
Language: Catalan
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Life below water
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1550788721