The Neolithic populations that came to the peninsula by sea and lived near it barely consumed fish

Works at the Cova Bonica deposit, in Vallirana. Domingo Carlos Salazar, CIDEGENT researcher at the University of Valencia (UV), has led a study that dates the occupation of the Neolithic site of Cova Bonica, located near the coast and the Llobregat River Delta. The results, published in the Frontiers magazine, confirm the important weight of an agricultural-livestock economy 7,400 years ago now, with a diet based on domesticated species of cereals and animals, and without the presence of fish. The University of Barcelona and University College Dublin also participate in the work. "It is surprising that, despite the fact that the site is located quite close to the coastline, there is no isotopic evidence of the consumption of resources from the sea", says biomolecular archaeologist Domingo C. Salazar, a member of the Department of Prehistory, Archaeology and Ancient History of the UV. This has been revealed by a study carried out using stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen, a type of signal that is reflected in the bones and teeth of animals and humans, and that serves to reconstruct the diet. In addition, this is the first time that a study of these characteristics has been carried out in the Iberian Peninsula, in which this analysis technique has been combined with the study of food microremains trapped in the calculus (plaque) of the teeth in populations of the ancient Neolithic.