Feeding Stonehenge: The Potential of Coprolites as Tools for Reconstructing Diet

Summary

The Feeding Stonehenge project combined zooarchaeology with pottery residue analysis to explore the diets and provisioning of the inhabitants of Neolithic Durrington Walls, the settlement associated with the construction of the iconic Stonehenge monument in southern Britain. A lack of preserved plant remains at the site, and an overwhelming dominance of porcine and ruminant lipids in the pottery, suggests that animal products were the major source of nutrition. This research tests this hypothesis through analysis of organic residues preserved in coprolites, which have not previously been incorporated into dietary studies. Can these more unusual forms of evidence provide additional information on non-animal inputs to diet at the settlement? Coprolites identified as human on the basis of sterol and bile acid profiles can be further analysed for dietary residues including plant microfossils.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 18709