From Harvesting the Sea to Stock Rearing Along the Atlantic Façade of North-West Europe

By 3000 BC, farmers had settled most of the small islands of north-western Europe. This implies the transportation of domestic animals by sea, sometimes over long distances, and the adaptation of herding techniques to new marine environments. While many of the same islands were in use in the Mesolithic period, the nature and extent of this use appears to have been quite different. Zooarchaeological and stable isotopic analysis converge to suggest that the diet of human communities at this time was heavily reliant on marine foods. Neolithic settlements located in the same setting offer a contrasting view. Shell middens were still present at this time, and the remains of fish, marine birds and sea mammals confirm that marine resources were still exploited, but isotopic evidence highlights their minor contribution to the diet. This, combined with the faunal dominance of cattle, sheep and pig, indicates a reliance on domesticated resources. By the end of the Neolithic, even the most peripheral islands of north-western Europe were being exploited primarily for their terrestrial resources. This paper presents evidence from selected sites in western France and Orkney, and then proceeds to offer some possible explanations for the observed patterns of small island use in the Neolithic.