Abstract Intertidal environments have been the main source for mollusc gathering and consumption for at least the last 164,000 years. However, our knowledge of long-term trends is compromised by the fact that the majority of Pleistocene and early Holocene shorelines, and in turn their archaeological sites, are either currently submerged under water or have long been destroyed by sea-level change. Ecological information on the resilience of intertidal resources is crucial in assessing how attractive they were to past humans as a long-term source of food. Of particular interest is the southern Red Sea and its function as the southern gateway out of Africa into Arabia during a period of aridity. The role that marine food sources likely played in this dispersal is underplayed and largely ignored when interpreting periods of terrestrial aridity. Here we analyse the resilience of Conomurex fasciatus and report size measurements of over 15,000 specimens from the Holocene shell middens on the Farasan Islands, Saudi Arabia, as an ecological baseline for prehistoric shellfish exploitation to determine the long-term sustainability of shellfish harvesting in an arid environment. Changes in shell-size and relative abundance can indicate whether a species was subjected to changes in the intensity of human harvests and we use this dataset to reconstruct how the species was affected by a known intense exploitation period between 7360 and 4780 cal BP. Our results indicate no signs of resource depletion throughout the occupation period and add to the growing body of evidence that marine resources along arid shorelines are an important part of a mixed diet. Further, by measuring size changes occurring during early life stages of C. fasciatus we were able to reveal changes in size that were unaffected by human harvesting pressure and instead suggest patch-selection as the main control. These results have implications for the interpretation of shellfish harvesting during periods of terrestrial aridity and specifically the potential of shellfish as a reliable food source during Palaeolithic migrations out of Africa.

中文翻译：

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贝类对红海南部史前人类消费的恢复力：Conomurex fasciatus 的时间和空间变异性

摘要 至少在过去的 164,000 年间，潮间带环境一直是软体动物采集和消费的主要来源。然而，我们对长期趋势的了解受到以下事实的影响：大多数更新世和早期全新世海岸线，以及它们的考古遗址，目前要么被淹没在水下，要么早已被海平面变化摧毁。关于潮间带资源恢复力的生态信息对于评估它们作为长期食物来源对过去人类的吸引力有多大至关重要。特别令人感兴趣的是红海南部及其在干旱时期作为从非洲进入阿拉伯的南部门户的功能。在解释陆地干旱时期时，海洋食物来源可能在这种扩散中发挥的作用被低估了，而且在很大程度上被忽略了。在这里，我们分析了 Conomurex fasciatus 的恢复力，并报告了来自沙特阿拉伯法拉桑群岛全新世贝壳中的 15,000 多个标本的尺寸测量结果，作为史前贝类开发的生态基线，以确定在干旱地区收获贝类的长期可持续性环境。壳大小和相对丰度的变化可以表明一个物种是否受到人类收获强度的变化，我们使用这个数据集来重建该物种如何受到 7360 和 4780 cal BP 之间已知的密集开采期的影响。我们的研究结果表明，在整个占领期间没有资源枯竭的迹象，并且越来越多的证据表明，干旱海岸线上的海洋资源是混合饮食的重要组成部分。更多，通过测量 C. fasciatus 早期生命阶段发生的尺寸变化，我们能够揭示不受人类收获压力影响的尺寸变化，并建议将斑块选择作为主要对照。这些结果对解释陆地干旱时期贝类捕捞情况具有重要意义，特别是在旧石器时代迁出非洲期间贝类作为可靠食物来源的潜力。