Caution! Contents were hot: Novel biomarkers to detect the heating of fatty acids in residues from pottery use

From bowls to pots: The dairying revolution in Northwest Turkey, a view from Barcın Höyük, 6600 to 6000 BCE

“…GC-MS analyses additionally detected minor amounts of monounsaturated fatty acids, very long chained fatty acids, dicarboxylic acids and branched fatty acids, common in extensively degraded animal fats and coherent with previously reported animal lipid residues from the Aegean and the Anatolian Neolithic [ 10 – 12 , 47 ]. Long mid-chained ketones (LCK) indicative of the protracted heating of palmitic and stearic acids [ 48 – 50 ] were detected in four samples ( Fig 8c ) and, in eight cases, samples presenting odd-chained alkanes and fatty alcohols were accompanied by a series wax esters and hydroxy-wax esters ( Fig 8d ). No aquatic biomarkers such as ω-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids 18 to 22 carbons long, or specific isoprenoic fatty acids (4,8,12-trimethyltridecanoic acid) [ 51 , 52 ] were present in the Barcın Höyük extracts, underlining the terrestrial component of the processed foodstuffs in the studied vessels.…”

Pottery spilled the beans: Patterns in the processing and consumption of dietary lipids in Central Germany from the Early Neolithic to the Bronze Age

“…5500-1000 BCE) by studying the lipid residues trapped in a set of 124 period-characteristic pottery vessels of different shapes, sizes, and contexts. Lipid analyses can distinguish between residual fats derived from milk, ruminant and non-ruminant animals, as well as of marine or plant origin [8][9][10][11], or the effects of heating [12][13][14][15][16]. Their detection has been used as a proxy for the presence of wider food categories such as dairy [2,17] or plant products [11,18] and as direct evidence for the sources of fat used in those foodways involving pottery.…”