Ancient shellfish foraging in Indonesia: Shore middens (At coasts, much mollusk consumption may have occurred offshore, the shells not brought to land. However in certain circumstances, it would be more efficient to carry or toss shellfish to shore (in rough/cold/freshwater, in mud-bottom shallows, shark-croc dense waters). Later development of rafts/dugout boats/baskets/bags/nets, seafood would be brought en masse ashore (industrial food production method), and larger middens would accumulate.
The shells of Trinil | john hawks weblog
http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=182b6af14da0a5a977f17aa871551445
"[T]he presence of a relatively large number of only adult, large-size Pseudodon shells, excavated from a very limited area (Hauptknochenschicht in Trinil), in both the Dubois and Bandung collections, is a discrepancy in the aquatic assemblage that merits further attention for these shells.
The fact that many of the Pseudodon valves are still paired and well-preserved would suggest that the molluscs were not dead and transported by water before fossilization but were buried in live position. However, the complete absence of small, juvenile shells as well as the mixed occurrence of two different (but equally large-sized) shell forms argues against interpretation of burial of a live population (Van Benthem Jutting, 1937). Instead, the discrepancies suggest that the Pseudodon shells could have been brought together, prior to fossilization, by a size-selective collecting agent who may have used them for consumption of molluscan flesh (Joordens et al. 2009: 13).
The Elongaria assemblage from Trinil, just like Pseudodon, appears to indicate collection by a selective agent for the purpose of mollusc consumption. The Pseudodon and Elongaria assemblages from Trinil have the characteristics of shell middens (e.g., Waselkov, 1987; Rosendahl et al., 2007): large adult shells only, many complete shells, no signs of damage due to water rolling, signs of damage due to being deliberately opened, presence of human (hominin) bones in the same layer.
http://pick5.pick.uga.edu/mp/20m?ki...roscope&burl=http://htpp://microscope.mbl.edu
(Hawks) Early Pleistocene surface collections dug by vertebrate paleontologists (as opposed to archaeologists) sometimes discard or leave fish bones unidentified, and it is not always clear whether a loose association of shells would be recognized as a possible hominin-accumulated feature.
http://d.wanfangdata.com.cn/NSTLQK_NSTL_QK11126345.aspx
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S096098220800969X
Giant clam harvesting by archaic humans at Eritrean coast.
Giant clams are among the most spectacular but also the most endangered marine invertebrates. Their large size and easy accessibility has caused overfishing and collapse of the natural stocks in many places and local extinction in some of the species [1] and [2]. The diversity of giant clams is extremely low because of reliction in this Tethyan group [3] and [4].
This species represents less than 1% of the present stocks but up to >80% of the fossil shells. The decline in proportion and shell size (20×) indicates overharvesting [8] (it only lives on the roof of tropical reefs in the
Red Sea) dating back to the early human occupation of the Red Sea >125,000 years ago [9]. This earliest depletion reported so far of a shallow-water megafaunal invertebrate has important ramifications for human dispersal out of Africa [10]. Its oversight in one of the best-investigated reef provinces [11], [12] and [13] illustrates the dearth of knowledge on marine biodiversity.
The new giant clam differs from others in the Red Sea in an early and brief reproductive period each spring, coinciding with the
seasonal plankton bloom, they report. Underwater surveys carried out in the Gulf of Aqaba and northern Red Sea revealed that the long-overlooked clam must be considered critically endangered. Only six out of a thousand live specimens the researchers observed belonged to the new species.