title: Interrelationship of age and diet in Romania's oldest human burial.
abstract: In 1968, excavations in the Climente II cave in the Iron Gates gorge of the River Danube in southwest Romania unearthed the skeleton of an adult male. The burial was assumed to be of Late Pleistocene age because of the presence of Late Upper Palaeolithic (LUP) artefacts in the cave. However, there was no strong supporting stratigraphic evidence, and the body position is reminiscent of Early Neolithic burial practice in the region. Here, we report the results of radiocarbon and stable isotope analyses of the Climente II skeleton, which show that the skeleton dates to the Bølling-Allerød Interstadial ~14,500 cal BP. This is several millennia older than any previously dated human remains from the Iron Gates region and confirms its status as the oldest known burial from Romania. The stable isotope results indicate a diet with an emphasis on aquatic resources, contrary to the commonly held view that the LUP inhabitants of the Iron Gates subsisted mainly by hunting large land mammals.
authors.affiliation: School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. C.Bonsall@ed.ac.uk
authors.forename: Clive
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bonsall
authors.forename: Adina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Boroneanţ
authors.forename: Andrei
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Soficaru
authors.forename: Kathleen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McSweeney
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Higham
authors.forename: Nicolae
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Miriţoiu
authors.forename: Catriona
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pickard
authors.forename: Gordon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cook
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000737:chemistry*; D002048:Burial; D002247:Carbon Isotopes / Q000032:analysis; D004032:Diet; D005399:Fishes / Q000378:metabolism; D005580:Fossils; D006801:Humans; D007554:Isotopes / Q000032:analysis; D008297:Male; D009587:Nitrogen Isotopes / Q000032:analysis; D055110:Radiometric Dating; D012383:Romania
chemical_list: D002247:Carbon Isotopes; D007554:Isotopes; D009587:Nitrogen Isotopes