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Neolithic Trade Routes re-aligned by Oxygen Isotope Analyses

Abstract

Oxygen isotope analyses of Spondylus shells from neolithic sites suggest that the source for the shells used as ornaments in the Balkans and central Europe during the fourth millennium BC was the Aegean and not the Black Sea. The trade in Spondylus may have taken the form of an exchange of gifts.

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SHACKLETON, N., RENFREW, C. Neolithic Trade Routes re-aligned by Oxygen Isotope Analyses. Nature 228, 1062–1065 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/2281062a0

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