This collection of 25 papers authored by 40 contributors is united by the broad topic of maritime adaptation. The three main themes addressed by the individual chapters are: early marine foraging and adaptive strategies; settlement and subsistence by the sea; and seafaring in historical perspective. Two key regions for comparison are the coasts of Norway and neighbouring Fennoscandia, and the Southern Cone of South America: Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Other sites described and discussed are located on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean (Canada, Spain, Portugal and Ireland), the Arctic Ocean (Alaska and Greenland), the Pacific Ocean (insular British Columbia and the Californian Channel Islands), the Indian Ocean (Sri Lanka) and the Baltic Sea.
The first part of the book addresses the earliest exploitation of marine resources—mammals, birds, fish and molluscs and other invertebrates—for different regions of the world. Based on solid archaeozoological data, humans began to consume marine products in northern Spain at c. 34000 cal BP (chapter by E. Álvarez-Fernándes); in Norway at c. 11500 cal BP (K.A. Bergsvik et al.); in Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands, Canada) at c. 11300 cal BP (D. Fedje & D. McLaren); in southern Portugal at c. 8100 cal BP (J. Soares); and in Tierra del Fuego at c. 7500 cal BP (H.B. Bjerck et al.).
The second section of the volume focuses on subsistence strategies based on marine resources. Of particular interest is the analysis of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope ratios in human bone collagen, which provide direct evidence of palaeodiet. The δ13C values above approximately −20 per mill (‰), and δ15N values higher than around 10–12‰, indicate the consumption of aquatic products (e.g. Katzenberg Reference Katzenberg, Katzenberg and Saunders2008; see also Kuzmin Reference Kuzmin2015). These data are presented for the pre-contact populations of the Patagonian Pacific coast (chapter by O. Reyes et al.; δ13C = −9.3/−13.9‰ and δ15N = 15.3/19.5‰); Middle Mesolithic of Oslofjord, southern Norway (S. Solheim & P. Person; δ13C = −15/−16‰ and δ15N = 14/16‰); and southern Norway and neighbouring Scandinavia (B. Scar et al.; for the Mesolithic Hummervikholmen site: δ13C = −13.5/−13.8‰ and δ15N = 19.6/20.5‰). The latter case is particularly notable because it demonstrates the use of almost pure marine protein sources of the highest trophic level (pinnipeds) in the Scandinavian Mesolithic. For comparison, the much later coastal population of the Ekwen (Ekven) site in the Chukotka region of the Siberian Arctic, with δ15N values of ~20.0‰ (see also Kuzmin Reference Kuzmin2010: 110), is mentioned as another example of an almost exclusively marine-based diet. The extensive application of radiocarbon dating at coastal sites is another line of evidence widely reported in this volume; examples can be found in the chapters by K.A. Bergsvik et al., O. Reyes et al., M. San Román et al., B. Scar et al. and J. Soares.
The third part of the book, dealing with issues of seafaring, highlights a major problem for archaeologists in many regions—the absence of direct evidence such as the remains of dugout canoes. In this case, the contributors turn to three other lines of (indirect) proof of seafaring: the settling of islands separated from the mainland by significant distances; raw materials with easily identifiable sources, such as obsidian (e.g. Kuzmin Reference Kuzmin2016) that must have been transported across expanses of water; and rock art representations of seagoing vessels.
Palaeogeographic data from the northern Channel Islands (present-day Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel, plus the Anacapa islets), off the coast of California, are particularly noteworthy in relation to patterns of colonisation, maritime adaptation and seafaring. The palaeo-landmass known as Santarosae was settled by humans by at least c. 13000 cal BP, providing some of the earliest evidence (however indirect) of seafaring in Pacific North America (chapter by J.M. Erlandson).
The determination of obsidian sources for establishing the long-distance transportation of raw materials by boat is used by several contributors dealing with Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego (chapters by H.B. Bjerck et al.; H.M. Breivik et al.; O. Reyes et al.; and M. San Román et al.). Another raw materials study uses the changing quantities of local medium-quality quartz vs remotely sourced high-quality flint to demonstrate the increasingly sedentary lifestyle of the Mesolithic to Early Neolithic populations in southern Norway (chapter by S.V. Nielsen et al.). Turning to the Bronze Age, preliminary analysis of the production and circulation of bronze artefacts in the Baltic region is used to infer possible trade routes, with the cautionary note that the distribution of these objects is not unequivocal proof of maritime transportation (chapter by U. Sperling).
Rock art images of fishing and the hunting of marine mammals from watercraft, with the earliest examples from the Late Mesolithic in Fennoscandia c. 7000 cal BP, give clues about the emergence of seafaring (chapter by J.M. Gjerde). Millennia later, most probably in the late fifteenth century AD, the indigenous Arctic populations developed boats equipped with sails as well as oars, possibly borrowing from the early Norse/Icelandic settlers of Greenland (chapter by E. Anichtchenko). During the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the interaction between the Inuit population of the Labrador coast of Canada and European (mainly French) cod-fishers resulted in the former acquiring valuable chaloupes (i.e. shallops—small wooden seagoing vessels with sails), often by means of raiding (chapter by A. Crompton & L.K. Rankin).
Overall, this volume contains a plethora of useful information on maritime adaptation in different regions, including southernmost South America, which remains relatively poorly known to international scholarly audiences. The collection is richly illustrated, and the lists of references in several languages provide a valuable resource for further in-depth study. The wide chronological coverage—from the Upper Palaeolithic to the early modern period—will also attract a range of readers.
