67,000 years of coastal engagement at Panga ya Saidi, eastern Africa

The antiquity and nature of coastal resource procurement is central to understanding human evolution and adaptations to complex environments. It has become increasingly apparent in global archaeological studies that the timing, characteristics, and trajectories of coastal resource use are highly variable. Within Africa, discussions of these issues have largely been based on the archaeological record from the south and northeast of the continent, with little evidence from eastern coastal areas leaving significant spatial and temporal gaps in our knowledge. Here, we present data from Panga ya Saidi, a limestone cave complex located 15 km from the modern Kenyan coast, which represents the first long-term sequence of coastal engagement from eastern Africa. Rather than attempting to distinguish between coastal resource use and coastal adaptations, we focus on coastal engagement as a means of characterising human relationships with marine environments and resources from this inland location. We use aquatic mollusc data spanning the past 67,000 years to document shifts in the acquisition, transportation, and discard of these materials, to better understand long-term trends in coastal engagement. Our results show pulses of coastal engagement beginning with low-intensity symbolism, and culminating in the consistent low-level transport of marine and freshwater food resources, emphasising a diverse relationship through time. Panga ya Saidi has the oldest stratified evidence of marine engagement in eastern Africa, and is the only site in Africa which documents coastal resources from the Late Pleistocene through the Holocene, highlighting the potential archaeological importance of peri-coastal sites to debates about marine resource relationships.

Coastal Adaptations in North and South Carolina

Coastal occupation of North and South Carolina from the Late Archaic through Woodland periods demonstrates intensive use of shellfish, including unique patterns of shell ring construction along the southern coast of South Carolina and smaller middens to the north. Shell middens capture the complexity of the interactions between humans and their surroundings in prehistory, revealing how human action affected the environment. For shellfish specifically, harvest pressure was a selective force on coastal hard clam, Mercenaria mercenaria, and eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, populations, which is just one way in which human–environmental interactions may have permanently altered the ecosystem.

Coastal Adaptations to the Northern Gulf of Maine and Southern Scotian Shelf

The northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM) and its watershed have attracted humans for the last 12,500 years (cal BP), and evidence of Palaeoindian marine economies is well established in adjacent regions by ca. 8000 cal BP. Sea level rise (SLR) has obscured understandings of early coastal adaptations, although underwater research and some near-shore sites are providing important insights. The earliest evidence from surviving shell middens dates to ca. 5000 cal BP, and reveals that shellfish collecting and the seasonal exploitation of benthopelagic fish were important throughout the Late Maritime Archaic and Maritime Woodland periods. However, significant economic shifts have occurred. In particular, a Late Archaic focus on marine swordfish hunting was replaced by a dramatic increase in inshore seal hunting in the Maritime Woodland period. After ca. 3100 cal BP, inshore fishing for cod, flounder, sculpin, sturgeon and other species intensified. During the Late Maritime Woodland period, shellfish exploitation declined somewhat and the hunting of small seals, and, in some areas, white-tailed deer, increased sharply. The extent and nature of coastal economies in the NGOM was controlled, in part, by SLR, increasing tidal amplitude, and concomitant changes in surface-water temperatures, in tandem with broad regional cultural shifts.

Shell Middens and Seashores

Studies on Middle and Late Pleistocene hominin dietary adaptations have argued that aquatic foods played a key role during this evolutionary process. This chapter presents a summary account on the use and significance of marine resources, particularly shellfish, for early modern humans in southern Africa during oxygen isotope stages (OIS) 6–4. The methods used to identify, quantify, and compare archaeomalacological assemblages in South Africa and beyond, their drawbacks, as well as palaeoenvironmental, taphonomical and foraging considerations necessary to evaluate these data are discussed. The significance of diet broadening in the context of emerging modern humans about 160 ka and their exit out of Africa ~80–60 ka is reflected upon in the light of coastal adaptations by other early hominins groups elsewhere, such as Neanderthals in the Mediterranean Basin. The implications of longer residential permanence and higher population densities generally possible near productive shorelines are also examined.