Isotopes and Fish Bones in the Bronze Age Aegean: Expanding Our Understanding of Aquatic Diets

Isotopic analyses of human bones in a search for ancient individual and community-specific dietary habits are becoming increasingly common in Greek archaeology, highlighting dominant dietary items but also absent or under-consumed ones. Fish and marine molluscs fall in the latter category having been, in this region, largely undetected isotopically. At the same time, accumulated conventional zooarchaeological studies of fish bone and molluscan remains from sites of wide chronological and geographical distribution suggest a constant and, at places, intense consumption of aquatic foods. The two sets of data, isotopic and zooarchaeological, offer an apparently contradictory picture. This paper provides a critical review of the current state of research in the context of Prehistoric, mostly Bronze Age Aegean. Additionally, it explores possible ways to achieve nuanced, in-depth understanding of the exploitation of aquatic, mostly marine, food resources, combining the methodologies and findings of both approaches. It elaborates on certain methodological and interpretational issues, and it suggests possible directions for future research. The combined analysis of the available data suggests that both geographical and social factors may have affected fish consumption in the past. It becomes clear, however, that to be able to offer meaningful and secure evaluations in a time and site-specific manner, we need targeted, high quality excavation data that would provide the context of analysis. We would also need detailed publication of human and fish isotopic comparative data and fish and molluscan archaeological remains.