In recent years coastal foragers have emerged as a recurrent topic in discussions of explanatory models for complexity. These discussions have generally emphasized the concept of "affluent foragers", where complex coastal cultures arose because of abundant and attractive littoral resources. An alternative perspective sees the colonisation of coastal areas and consumption of littoral resources as an intensification process caused by demographic pressure and a decrease in terrestrial collecting and hunting productivity. In this paper we present the results of many years of archaeozoological and ethnoarchaeological research in three different contexts where forager societies exploited littoral and marine fauna to various degrees. The analysis of food production through vertebrate and invertebrate fauna consumption allows an evaluation of the economic foundations of coastal huntergatherer societies. The comparative study of three geographically disparate situations allows for the dismissal of strict environmental causality as a primary explanation for the development of coastal adaptations. More satisfying explanatory models are proposed that consider both the economic and social characteristics of these coastal hunter-gatherers, and the broader problem of their evolutionary change to domestication economies is addressed for cases where this transition occurred.
