Insights into changing coastlines, environments and marine hunter-gatherer lifestyles on the Pacific coast of South America from the La Yerba II shell midden, Río Ica estuary, Peru

Shell middens are conspicuous manifestations of the exploitation of rich, sustainable, easily seen and harvested marine resources that, worldwide, enabled hunter-gatherers to reduce mobility and increase population and social complexity. Globally, known sites tend to cluster chronologically around 6 k BP, after slowing eustatic sea-level rise, although the Pacific coast of South America offers some rare earlier exceptions.