The earliest durable cooking technologies found in Alaska are stone bowls and griddle stones recovered from the Aleutian Islands. This article aims to identify the function of these artefacts. Molecular and chemical analyses of carbonised residues found on their surfaces confirm that these artefacts were used to process marine resources. Both artefacts have high lipid content and C:N ratios, suggesting they were used to process oily substances. Stable isotope results of individual lipids suggest that they were used to process different sets of resources within the aquatic spectrum as griddle stones have slightly more 13C-depleted lipids than stone bowls, possibly indicating more variable use. Integration of these results with archaeological and ethnographic data leads us to infer that griddle stones were used for cooking a diversity of aquatic resources, possibly with the addition of plant foods, whereas stone bowls were specifically used to render marine mammal fats. We further hypothesize that a sudden peak in stone bowl frequencies at 4000–3000 cal yr BP was connected to a Neoglacial cold spell bringing sea ice conditions to the Aleutian Islands. This may have led to new subsistence strategies in which the rendering of marine mammal fats played a central role.
Artificial illumination is a fundamental human need. Burning wood and other materials usually in hearths and fireplaces extended daylight hours, whilst the use of flammable substances in torches offered light on the move. It is increasingly understood that pottery played a role in light production. In this study, we focus on ceramic oval bowls, made and used primarily by hunter-gatherer-fishers of the circum-Baltic over a c. 2000 year period beginning in the mid-6th millennium cal bc. Oval bowls commonly occur alongside larger (cooking) vessels. Their function as ‘oil lamps’ for illumination has been proposed on many occasions but only limited direct evidence has been secured to test this functional association. This study presents the results of molecular and isotopic analysis of preserved organic residues obtained from 115 oval bowls from 25 archaeological sites representing a wide range of environmental settings. Our findings confirm that the oval bowls of the circum-Baltic were used primarily for burning fats and oils, predominantly for the purposes of illumination. The fats derive from the tissues of marine, freshwater, and terrestrial organisms. Bulk isotope data of charred surface deposits show a consistently different pattern of use when oval bowls are compared to other pottery vessels within the same assemblage. It is suggested that hunter-gatherer-fishers around the 55th parallel commonly deployed material culture for artificial light production but the evidence is restricted to times and places where more durable technologies were employed, including the circum-Baltic.
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