A little luxury doesn’t hurt: Swiss stone pine ( Pinus cembra L.) - an unexpected item in the diet of central European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers

Our knowledge of the plant diet of the last European hunter-gatherers is hindered by the difficulties of recording poorly durable plant tissues. One exception is the hazelnut fruit, which preserves well at dry archaeological sites, although usually only in a charred state. Here we give the first evidence for the prehistoric (Mesolithic) use of seeds of the Swiss stone pine, specifically for the time period 8239 − 7943 cal bc , when this edible seed-bearing tree was an important element of local boreal forests in northern Bohemia, Czech Republic. This local population of Swiss stone pine became extinct at the end of the Early Holocene without leaving modern offspring in the lowlands and middle elevations of central Europe.