Long-Term Resilience of Late Holocene Coastal Subsistence System in Southeastern South America Andre ´ Carlo Colonese 1 *, Matthew Collins 1 , Alexandre Lucquin 1 , Michael Eustace 1 , Y. Hancock 2,3 , Raquel de Almeida Rocha Ponzoni 2,4 , Alice Mora 5 , Colin Smith 5 , Paulo DeBlasis 6 , Levy Figuti 6 , Veronica Wesolowski 6 , Claudia Regina Plens 7 , Sabine Eggers 8 , Deisi Scunderlick Eloy de Farias 9 , Andy Gledhill 10 , Oliver Edward Craig 1 1 BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, United Kingdom, 2 Department of Physics, University of York, York, United Kingdom, 3 York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis (YCCSA), University of York, York, United Kingdom, 4 Department of Biology, University of York, York, United Kingdom, 5 Department of Archaeology, Environment and Community Planning, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, 6 Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE), Universidade de Sa ˜o Paulo (USP), Sa ˜o Paulo, Brazil, 7 Laborato ´ rio de Estudos Arqueolo ´ gicos (LEA), Departamento de Histo ´ ria, Universidade Federal de Sa ˜o Paulo (UNIFESP), Sa ˜o Paulo, Brazil, 8 Laborato ´ rio de Antropologia Biolo ´ gica, Departamento de Gene ´tica e Biologia Evolutiva, Instituto de Biocie ˆncias, Universidade de Sa ˜o Paulo (USP), Sa ˜o Paulo, Brazil, 9 Grupep, Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina (UNISUL), Tubara ˜o, Brazil, 10 Division of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, United Kingdom Abstract Isotopic and molecular analysis on human, fauna and pottery remains can provide valuable new insights into the diets and subsistence practices of prehistoric populations. These are crucial to elucidate the resilience of social-ecological systems to cultural and environmental change. Bulk collagen carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of 82 human individuals from mid to late Holocene Brazilian archaeological sites (,6,700 to ,1,000 cal BP) reveal an adequate protein incorporation and, on the coast, the continuation in subsistence strategies based on the exploitation of aquatic resources despite the introduction of pottery and domesticated plant foods. These results are supported by carbon isotope analysis of single amino acid extracted from bone collagen. Chemical and isotopic analysis also shows that pottery technology was used to process marine foods and therefore assimilated into the existing subsistence strategy. Our multidisciplinary results demonstrate the resilient character of the coastal economy to cultural change during the late Holocene in southern Brazil. Citation: Colonese AC, Collins M, Lucquin A, Eustace M, Hancock Y, et al. (2014) Long-Term Resilience of Late Holocene Coastal Subsistence System in Southeastern South America. PLoS ONE 9(4): e93854. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093854 Editor: Michael D. Petraglia, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Received December 29, 2013; Accepted February 22, 2014; Published April 9, 2014 Copyright: ß 2014 Colonese et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This research was funded by the EU Marie-Curie Action: ‘‘Intra-European fellowships for career development’’ (Coastal resources and South American hunter-gatherers: biochemical perspectives from Brazilian sambaquis - COREBRAS, Ref. 273734). FAPESP: projeto Sambaquis e Paisagem (Ref. 11038-0), Brazil, Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT0992258), Australia. Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientı ´fico e Tecnolo ´ gico (CNPq), Brazil and La Trobe University, Australia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: andre@palaeo.eu Introduction The Brazilian coast encompasses a wide range of tropical and sub-tropical ecosystems that have sustained human populations from the middle Holocene to the present day. The large shell mounds, or sambaquis, are a distinctive feature of this coastline, testament to large-scale exploitation of marine resources, from ,8,000 to ,1,000 calibrated years before present (cal BP). In southern Brazil some sambaquis reached more than 35 m high and contained hundreds of burials, post holes and faunal remains testifying the development of a complex social panorama [1]. The exploitation of aquatic (mostly marine) resources was an important subsistence activity at these sites [2] and must have drawn people to the coast. However indirect evidence reveals that the contribution of plants also appears to be important [3–8]. Sambaquis containing freshwater and land snail shells are also found along the courses of rivers and their distribution penetrates some distances inland. These ‘‘Riverine sambaquis’’ are the same age or even older than their coastal analogues (,10,000 to ,1,000 cal BP) [9] and occasionally finds of marine fauna at these riverine sites suggest some connection to the coast [10], [11], [12]. A dramatic change is seen in the archaeological record at ,1,500 cal BP with the abrupt cessation of large shell mound formation [13]. At this time it is thought that new populations from the southern highlands (known as the Taquara/Itarare ´ tradition) [14] expanded to the coastal lowlands [15], likely driven by rapid population growth, increasing of social interaction and intensification in food production, involving maize and exploita- tion of pine forest (Araucaria angustifolia) [16]. The appearance of Taquara/Itarare ´ pottery along the southern coast of Brazil therefore may mark a key turning point in exploitation of rich coastal ecotones, as prehistoric groups gained the knowledge and technology to develop new economic practices. However the extent to which the transmission (or imposition) of this new subsistence system transformed the indigenous coastal economy, and its capacity to adjust, persist and maintain its fundamental properties, is still a matter of debate [17]. While there is some evidence for consumption of new cultigens like maize by Taquara/Itarare ´ groups [7] and increased PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org 1 April 2014 | Volume 9 | Issue 4 | e93854