Ricerc@Sapienza

In this contribution we dismantle the perceived role of marine resources and plant foods in the
subsistence economy of Holocene foragers of the Central Mediterranean using a combination of dental
calculus and stable isotope analyses. The discovery of fish scales and flesh fragments, starch granules
and other plant and animal micro-debris in the dental calculus of a Mesolithic forager dated to the end
of the 8th millenium BC and buried in the Vlakno Cave on Dugi Otok Island in the Croatian Archipelago

Objectives: The analysis of prehistoric human dietary habits is key for understanding the effects of paleoenvironmental changes on the evolution of cultural and social human behaviors. In this study, we compare results from zooarchaeological, stable isotope, and dental calculus analyses as well as lower second molar macrowear pat-terns to gain a broader understanding of the diet of three individuals who lived between the end of the Late Pleistocene and the Early Holocene (ca., 17–8 ky cal BP)in the Eastern Alpine region of Italy.