The harbour porpoise is the most common cetacean species in Northern and North-Western European waters. Harbour porpoise exploitation is often depicted in Mesolithic Scandinavian rock engravings and frequently mentioned in Medieval documentary sources. Based on historical evidence it appears that the social elite in the High and Late Medieval periods attempted to monopolize the consumption of harbour porpoise meat. It has been argued that the symbolic significance of the harbour porpoise surpassed its utilitarian value for these periods. Here, we combine these documentary sources with zooarchaeological data to examine the exploitation of harbour porpoises in the North Atlantic region from the Mesolithic to the post-Medieval period. The zooarchaeological data suggest that harbour porpoises were frequently exploited during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, especially in the Baltic Sea area. Harbour porpoise exploitation declined in subsequent periods before increasing again in the Medieval period. A large number of harbour porpoise remains have been recovered from the High Medieval period specifically. In England, most of these sites are considered high-status, suggesting that the social elite indeed did monopolize their consumption. For the other Northern and North-Western European regions there are several high-status sites with harbour porpoise remains, suggesting that the symbolic significance of the harbour porpoise was apparent throughout Northern and North-Western Europe.