Simulating land use dynamics and the role of marine resources in diets during the Early Bronze Age-II (ca. 4900 – 4700 cal. BP) at Gökçeada (ancient Imbros) in the northern Aegean

Islands represent small-scale ecosystems that often represent nutritional challenges and require mixed subsistence strategies. This research focuses on Gökçeada (ancient Imbros) in the northern Aegean, where an Early Bronze Age-II (ca. 4900–4700 cal. BP) site has been subjected to agent-based modeling experiments to explore whether a mixed subsistence strategy was necessary to sustain the population, and to explore the scale and intensity of long-term anthropogenic impacts. Yenibademli Höyük was excavated for a quarter century and researchers have conducted a wide variety of interdisciplinary research to supplement archaeological data. Based on this broad dataset (which contains zooarchaeological, palaeobotanical, and palaeoecological evidence), it is possible to test six scenarios that present different paleoclimatic conditions, along with agro-pastoral subsistence at varying levels of intensity. The results suggest that anthropogenically induced environmental change has been negligible around the site, mainly due to an insufficient level of agro-pastoral production to sustain the population. The high density of shellfish and other marine sources found at the site supports the results of agent-based modeling, which shows that the population had to supplement their diet with seafood.