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1. Introduction

The aim of this paper is to introduce dental microwear analysis as an exploratory means of investigating diet during the Mesolithic period, and to illustrate some differences in dental microwear (tooth wear at the microscopic scale) between Mesolithic and Neolithic populations. Dental microwear refers to small scale tooth wear caused by small, hard objects in food. Analysis of such microwear features aims to provide information about food eaten near the time of death of each individual analyzed. Dental microwear thus complements other archaeological and human-skeletal sources of palaeodietary (the study of food and diet among archaeological populations) data. The geographic focus is the Atlantic coastline of Europe, where Mesolithic populations have already been quite well-researched in terms of stable isotope palaeodietary analysis. Studied here are some well known Mesolithic sites: Cnoc Coig in Oronsay in western Scotland (n=2, ca. 4600-4300 cal. BC); Aveline's Hole in Somerset in southern England (n=5, ca. 8200 cal. BC); Téviec (n=7, ca. 5200 cal. BC) and Hoëdic (n=1, ca. 5330 cal. BC) in Brittany. One individual was also analyzed from Totty Pot, another Somerset cave, where dental material was recovered in association with other human remains dating to ca. 7200 cal. BC, although Neolithic material is also present at the site so the Mesolithic date of the individual studied here must be viewed with caution. Detailed information on these sites can be found in Mellars (1987), Schulting (2005) and Schulting and Richards (2001 ). Dental microwear data from these sites is compared to data from several Early or Middle Neolithic sites: Hambledon Hill (n=14) and Thornwell Farm (n=12) in southern Britain, Beg an-Dorchenn (n=4) and Port Blanc (n=2) in Brittany. Cnoc Coig material is compared to Torlin (n=1) and Clachaig (n=2) on Arran and Ballynahatty (n=1), Millin Bay (n=2) and Audleystown (n=1) in Co. Down, Northern Ireland, which are all within 150km of Oronsay.


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