The Adriatic Sea and Balkan Peninsula were an important corridor for the spread of agriculture northwards and westwards from the Near East into Europe. Therefore, the pace and nature of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition along the Adriatic coastline has important implications for the movement of new peoples and/or ideas during one of the most eventful periods in European prehistory. We present new Early Neolithic radiocarbon and stable isotope evidence from humans and animals from the Zemunica cave site in Dalmatia, Croatia. The results show that these humans date to the earliest Neolithic in the region, and they have completely terrestrial diets, where the main protein source was most likely to have come from domesticated animals. Data are then compared to previous isotope and archaeological evidence to explore models for the spread of agriculture along the eastern Adriatic coast.

Viking Haithabu and its successor, the medieval town of Schleswig, were important international trade centres. Human skeletal finds spanning a period of approximately 400 years represent the bodily relics of the former inhabitants, who witnessed the rise and fall of these trade centres. Analysis of δ13C and δ15N from bone collagen was performed to reconstruct and detect changes in dietary preferences over time. A comparison with the respective isotopic data obtained from a large archaeofaunal sample resulted in a classic ‘mixing muddle’ that could only be deciphered using isotope mass balance mixing models applied on an individual basis. It was found that the overall subsistence economy shifted over time from a focus on fishing to one based predominantly on farming. The move to utilizing a new main source of protein did not impair overall protein supply. In addition, changing living conditions experienced by the inhabitants of Schleswig may have led to a change in infant nursing strategy.

The article presents new results of stable isotope analyses made on animal and human bones from the Mesolithic–early Neolithic sites of Lepenski Vir and Vlasac in the Danube Gorges of the Balkans. It reconstructs the food web for the region during these periods on the basis of stable isotope analyses of mammal and fish species found at Vlasac. These results are compared to measurements made on human burials from the two sites. In the light of these new results, the article also discusses interpretations provided by previous isotopic studies of this material. It concludes that great care is required in the interpretation of stable isotope results due to inherent methodological complexities of this type of analysis, and suggests that it is also necessary to integrate stable isotope results with information based on the examination of faunal remains and the archaeological context of analysed burials when making inferences about palaeodietary patterns.

Stable isotope measurements and radiocarbon dates on 54 burials from northern Scotland document trends in marine protein consumption from the late Iron Age to the end of the Middle Ages. They illuminate how local environmental and cultural contingencies interrelated with a pan-European trend towards more intensive fishing around the end of the first millennium AD. Little use was made of marine foods in late Iron Age Orkney despite its maritime setting. Significant fish consumption appeared in the Viking Age (ninth to eleventh centuries AD), first in the case of some men buried with grave-goods of Scandinavian style but soon among both sexes in ‘Christian’ burials. There was then a peak in marine protein consumption from approximately the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries AD, particularly among men, after which the importance of fish-eating returned to Viking Age levels. The causes of these developments probably entailed a complex relationship between ethnicity, gender, Christian fasting practices, population growth, long-range fish trade and environmental change.

Deux études préliminaires ont été conduites en vue de déterminer dans quelles proportions l'aliment distribué et la productivité naturelle des marais atlantiques interviennent dans la ration alimentaire de Penueus japonicus en élevage semi-intensif (île de Noirmoutier). Deux méthodes ont été utiliséessimultanément : le marquage par les isotopes stables du carbone sur les tissus des crevettes et sur certains composants de la productivité, ainsi que la récupération de fécès marqués à l'oxyde de chrome. Il est apparu que l'aliment composé joue un rôle minime en début d'élevage; sa participation à la ration alimentaire augmente par la suite jusqu'à devenir essentielle en fin d'élevage. Par contre, il joue un rôle fertilisant primordial pour la conservation et la longévité de la richesse naturelle du bassin, saparticipation globale à la productivité pouvant atteindre 30 % de la biomasse totale.