Daily Activities, Diet and Resource Use at Neolithic Catalhoyuk by Lisa-Marie Shillito

Clearly research investigating parasites at Neolithic sites in Britain is needed. This is in contrast to the quite extensive research undertaken in the rest of Europe at the well preserved Neolithic alpine lakeside settlements in France, Germany and Switzerland (Bouchet et al., 1995 Dommelier et al., 1998 Le Bailly et al., 2005, 2007 Maicher et al., 2019), Spain (Maicher et al., 2017) and also Mesolithic Sweden (Bergman, 2018) and Ireland (Perri et al., 2018). We have no data at all for parasites affecting people in Neolithic Britain. In the Mesolithic layers of peat at Goldcliff in South Wales (5840–5620 BCE) whipworm eggs were recovered, which may have come from humans ( Trichuris trichiura) or pigs ( Trichuris suis) (Dark, 2004). Only a very limited amount is known about parasite infection in the prehistoric population of Britain up to the Neolithic (Mitchell, 2013 Anastasiou, 2015). Map indicating location of the Durrington Walls and Stonehenge.

These novel findings improve our understanding of both parasitic infection and dietary habits associated with this key Neolithic ceremonial site. Their presence in multiple coprolites provides new evidence that internal organs of animals were consumed. When the eggs of capillariids are found in the feces of humans or dogs it normally indicates that the internal organs (liver, lung or intestines) of animals with capillariasis have been eaten, and eggs passed through the gut without causing disease. The presence of fish tapeworm reveals that the Neolithic people who gathered to feast at Durrington Walls were at risk of infection from eating raw or undercooked freshwater fish.

Analyses of bile acid and sterol from these 5 coprolites show 1 to be of likely human origin and the other 4 to likely derive from dogs. Five (26%) contained helminth eggs, 1 with those of fish tapeworm (likely Dibothriocephalus dendriticus) and 4 with those of capillariid nematodes. Nineteen coprolites recovered from a midden and associated pits at Durrington Walls were analysed for intestinal parasite eggs using digital light microscopy. Durrington Walls was a large Neolithic settlement in Britain dating around 2500 BCE, located very close to Stonehenge and likely to be the campsite where its builders lived during its main stage of construction.

Daily Activities, Diet and Resource Use at Neolithic Catalhoyuk by Lisa-Marie Shillito