Tooth oxygen isotopes reveal Late Bronze Age origin of Mediterranean fish aquaculture and trade.

ABSTRACT: Past fish provenance, exploitation and trade patterns were studied by analyzing phosphate oxygen isotope compositions (δ¹⁸O_PO4) of gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) tooth enameloid from archaeological sites across the southern Levant, spanning the entire Holocene. We report the earliest evidence for extensive fish exploitation from the hypersaline Bardawil lagoon on Egypt's northern Sinai coast, as indicated by distinctively high δ¹⁸O_PO4 values, which became abundant in the southern Levant, both along the coast and further inland, at least from the Late Bronze Age (3,550-3,200 BP). A period of global, postglacial sea-level stabilization triggered the formation of the Bardawil lagoon, which was intensively exploited and supported a widespread fish

SUBMITTER: Guy SV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6148281 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature