| Abstract: |
Bone collagen stable carbon isotope values obtained from late Mesolithic and earlier Neolithic skeletal remains from the Dnieper Rapids region of Ukraine confirm an overall dietary equivalence occurring across these periods. It appears that human populations consumed fisherhuntergatherer diets throughout the period c. 10,0004500 cal-BC, with some limited archaeological evidence for the exploitation of domesticated animals occurring towards the end of this period. The analysis of dental pathologies from both periods establishes the protein-based nature of the dietary regimes. The addition of domesticated fauna towards the end of the Neolithic period, whilst attested by archaeological remains, is essentially invisible to both the palaeopathology and isotopic analyses carried out in this study. No secure evidence for the integration of cereal-based dietary regimes during either period was forthcoming from the study, though the precise nature of the observed variability in the stable isotopic evidence for diet remains to be established.
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