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      Site Distribution at the Edge of the Palaeolithic World: A Nutritional Niche Approach

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          Abstract

          This paper presents data from the English Channel area of Britain and Northern France on the spatial distribution of Lower to early Middle Palaeolithic pre-MIS5 interglacial sites which are used to test the contention that the pattern of the richest sites is a real archaeological distribution and not of taphonomic origin. These sites show a marked concentration in the middle-lower reaches of river valleys with most being upstream of, but close to, estimated interglacial tidal limits. A plant and animal database derived from Middle-Late Pleistocene sites in the region is used to estimate the potentially edible foods and their distribution in the typically undulating landscape of the region. This is then converted into the potential availability of macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, fats) and selected micronutrients. The floodplain is shown to be the optimum location in the nutritional landscape (nutriscape). In addition to both absolute and seasonal macronutrient advantages the floodplains could have provided foods rich in key micronutrients, which are linked to better health, the maintenance of fertility and minimization of infant mortality. Such places may have been seen as ‘good (or healthy) places’ explaining the high number of artefacts accumulated by repeated visitation over long periods of time and possible occupation. The distribution of these sites reflects the richest aquatic and wetland successional habitats along valley floors. Such locations would have provided foods rich in a wide range of nutrients, importantly including those in short supply at these latitudes. When combined with other benefits, the high nutrient diversity made these locations the optimal niche in northwest European mixed temperate woodland environments. It is argued here that the use of these nutritionally advantageous locations as nodal or central points facilitated a healthy variant of the Palaeolithic diet which permitted habitation at the edge of these hominins’ range.

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          A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records

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            Ecological Niches

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              Optimal Foraging Theory: A Critical Review

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2013
                10 December 2013
                : 8
                : 12
                : e81476
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Palaeoenvironmental Laboratories (PLUS), University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
                [2 ]School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland
                [3 ]MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, Southampton General Hospital, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
                [4 ]Institute of Developmental Sciences Building, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
                University of Oxford, United Kingdom
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: AGB LSB. Performed the experiments: AGB LSB. Analyzed the data: AGB LSB SR GCB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AGB SR GCB. Wrote the paper: AGB LSB.

                Article
                PONE-D-13-32559
                10.1371/journal.pone.0081476
                3858259
                96a86528-81cd-43c3-8d47-adcad3b5dbc2
                Copyright @ 2013

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 9 July 2013
                : 18 October 2013
                Page count
                Pages: 14
                Funding
                The data collection and analysis from SW England was funded by English Heritage (Project PNUM 5696 URL http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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