Are land snail a signature for the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition

Abstract

Edible land snails, representing food remains, are frequently very abundant in late Pleistocene and early-middle Holocene archaeological sites throughout the circum-Mediterranean region. As such, they appear to represent a signature for a broad spectrum subsistence base as first conceived by Flannery in 1969, and therefore must be in some way related to the transition from foraging to food production. This paper investigates the implications that can be drawn from the presence of these snails through information on their ecology, biology, behaviour and nutritional value as well as the behaviour of the prehistoric human groups who collected and consumed them.