The consumption of molluscs in the first farming societies: the Neolithic settlement of La Draga (northeast of the Iberi
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ORIGINAL PAPER
The consumption of molluscs in the first farming societies: the Neolithic settlement of La Draga (northeast of the Iberian Peninsula) Ester Verdún-Castelló 1 Xavier Terradas 3
&
Antoni Palomo 2 & Raquel Piqué 2 & Maria Saña 2 &
Received: 18 March 2017 / Accepted: 2 August 2017 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017
Abstract The consumption of wild resources, including molluscs, continued in the first farming societies together with the consumption of domestic resources. Remains of continental and marine molluscs have been found at the Neolithic site of La Draga (north-eastern Iberian Peninsula), dated in 5320– 4800 cal BC, and about 35 or 40 km away from the Mediterranean coast (nowadays and when the site was occupied). The contact between the site and the coast has already been attested due to the presence of other remains like mineral raw materials that come from the coastal ranges. As the presence of continental molluscs must be due to natural processes, the marine molluscs have been studied more exhaustively. The most common species is Mytilus galloprovincialis, followed by Glycymeris sp. and Spondylus sp. These species were used in different ways, as food but also as tools and raw * Ester Verdún-Castelló [email protected]; [email protected] Antoni Palomo [email protected] Raquel Piqué [email protected] Maria Saña [email protected] Xavier Terradas [email protected] 1
Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, LAMPEA UMR 7269, 5 Rue du Château de l Horloge, 13094 Aix-en-Provence, France
2
Department of Prehistory, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
3
Spanish National Research Council (CSIC–IMF), Archaeology of Social Dynamics, 08001 Barcelona, Spain
material for making ornaments. The presence of Mytilus galloprovincialis is not very common on the other Mediterranean contemporaneous sites where, in general, species from sandy bottoms are more abundant. Keywords La Draga . Neolithic . Iberian Peninsula . Molluscs . Food . Tools
Introduction The human consumption of coastal resources has been documented in different places around the Mediterranean Sea and especially in the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas since the Middle Palaeolithic (Aura et al. 2009; Zilhão et al. 2010; Colonese et al. 2011; Romagnoli et al. 2015, 2016; Fa et al. 2016). This consumption gradually increased until the middle Holocene or Mesolithic (Stiner et al. 2003; Colonese et al. 2011; Jordá Pardo et al. 2016). Since then, these resources have continued to play an important part in the diet of human societies, until the present time (Bailey et al. 2013). In the first farming societies, marine resources, especially molluscs, continued to be used together with domestic plants and animals. Many sites in the Mediterranean basin attest this continuity, both in the Iberian Peninsula (e.g. Estrada and Nadal 2008; Pascual Benito 2014; Nadal et al. 2015) and in other areas. Sites are known in the Italian Peninsula (Tagliacozzo 1993,
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