Dogs, a crane (not duck) and diet at Star Carr: a response to Schulting and Richards Petra Dark a * Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227, Reading RG6 6AB, UK Received 4 October 2002; received in revised form 3 February 2003; accepted 4 February 2003 Abstract In a recent article in this journal, Schulting and Richards (J Archaeol Sci 29 (2002) 327) present new carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of bones from two dogs (Canis familiaris) and a common crane (Grus grus) from the early Mesolithic sites of Star Carr and Seamer Carr, in the Vale of Pickering, north-east England (Excavations at Star Carr (1954); The Mesolithic in Europe (1989) 218). These, they argue, undermine my previous suggestion (J Archaeol Sci 23 (1996) 783) that the  13 C values for the Seamer dog obtained by Clutton-Brock and Noe-Nygaard (J Archaeol Sci 17 (1990) 643) could be explained by consumption not of marine foods, as originally interpreted, but from a diet that included foods from the freshwater carbonate-rich lake. Here I discuss Schulting and Richard’s new results and conclude that neither of the Vale of Pickering dogs need necessarily have consumed marine foods. Furthermore, the choice of a crane to test my suggestion that animals feeding on foods from the lake could have elevated  13 C values is inappropriate because the diet of this bird is unlikely to have included a significant component of freshwater foods. Schulting and Richard’s new data do not, therefore, provide evidence for seasonal movement of early Mesolithic human groups between the coast and the inland lake.  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Star Carr; Seamer Carr; Mesolithic; Dog (Canis familiaris); Common crane (Grus grus); Stable carbon isotopes; Stable nitrogen isotopes 1. Introduction In a recent article in this journal, Schulting and Richards [17] present new carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of bones from two dogs (Canis familiaris) and a common crane (Grus grus) (which they describe as the “duck” of their title!) from the early Mesolithic sites of Star Carr and Seamer Carr, in the Vale of Pickering, north-east England [1,14]. Their article follows my dis- cussion [8] of previous carbon isotope analysis on dog bones from Seamer Carr by Clutton-Brock and Noe-Nygaard [2], which were originally interpreted as suggesting that the dog, and probably the human group with which it was associated, had consumed foods of marine origin. The purpose of my 1996 article was to point out that the carbonate-rich waters of the lake produce  13 C signatures in aquatic plants similar to those of marine foods, as demonstrated by analyses of remains of Potamogeton, a submerged aquatic, from the Mesolithic lake deposits. Food chains based on the lake resources could thus appear to show a marine effect. Schulting and Richards (S & R hereafter) re- measured the carbon isotope values of the Seamer Carr dog originally analysed by Clutton-Brock and Noe-Nygaard, and produced new analyses for a dog and a crane from Star Carr. These, along with their nitrogen isotope analyses, were argued to indicate that the Seamer Carr dog did consume marine protein, while the Star Carr dog did not. The crane did not have an enriched  13 C value which, they argued, indicates that lake-based food chains in the Vale of Pickering do not show a “hard water” effect. These new analyses are, of course, a welcome ad- dition to the debate on food resource use in the Vale of Pickering, especially as they are the first isotope analyses on bones from Star Carr itself (see Table 1 for selected a Formerly Day. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: s.p.dark@reading.ac.uk (P. Dark). Journal of Archaeological Science 30 (2003) 1353–1356 SCIENCE Journal of Archaeological http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas SCIENCE Journal of Archaeological http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas 0305-4403/03/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0305-4403(03)00026-8