Isotopic evidence of high reliance on plant food among Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers at Taforalt, Morocco.

ABSTRACT: The transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture stands as one of the most important dietary revolutions in human history. Yet, due to a scarcity of well-preserved human remains from Pleistocene sites, little is known about the dietary practices of pre-agricultural human groups. Here we present the isotopic evidence of pronounced plant reliance among Late Stone Age hunter-gatherers from North Africa (15,000-13,000 cal BP), predating the advent of agriculture by several millennia. Employing a comprehensive multi-isotopic approach, we conducted zinc (δ⁶⁶Zn) and strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) analysis on dental enamel, bulk carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) and sulfur (δ³⁴S) isotope analysis on dentin and bone collagen, and single a

SUBMITTER: Moubtahij Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11090808 | biostudies-literature | 2024 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature