Dairying in antiquity. III. Evidence from absorbed lipid residues dating to the British Neolithic

Copley, Mark S.; Berstan, Robert; Mukherjee, Abhijit; Dudd, Stephanie N.; Straker, Vanessa; Payne, Sebastian; Evershed, Richard P.

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2004.08.006

Cited by 119 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…These rates of decline, whereby more than 80 % of the total yield is produced during the first six months, are similar to those for modern dual and beef breeds (Jenkins and Ferrell 1992). Since there is no reason to assume that the duration of lactation was shorter for prehistoric cattle given the evidence for a long tradition of dairying in Britain from the Neolithic period (Copley et al 2005b), it is likely that two calving seasons, in spring and autumn, or an extended period of calving through spring, summer and autumn would have been required to achieve an adequate supply of fresh milk throughout the year. would calve in the spring, for milk through the summer, and one would calve in the autumn, to give milk through the winter" (Neat 2000, 67).…”

Section: The Economic Focus Of Cattle Husbandry At Poolsupporting

confidence: 58%

Calving seasonality at Pool, Orkney during the first millennium AD: an investigation using intra-tooth isotope ratio analysis of cattle molar enamel

Towers

Mainland

Montgomery

et al. 2016

Environmental Archaeology

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(2016) 'Calving seasonality at Pool, Orkney during the rst millennium AD : an investigation using intra-tooth isotope ratio analysis of cattle molar enamel.', Environmental archaeology., 22 (1). pp. 40-55. Further information on publisher's website: Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. IntroductionIn order to gain an understanding of the economic basis of prehistoric communities, the identification of dairying is essential, particularly in northwest Europe, where a high degree of lactose tolerance suggests that fresh milk has long been a significant dietary component. Currently, prehistoric dairying is investigated using a variety of techniques.The two techniques that have been most widely applied are the examination of faunal remains and compound-specific stable isotope analysis of lipids in pottery residues.Examination of faunal remains to determine age-at-death slaughter patterns (mortality profiles) and female to male ratios (Higham 1968;Payne 1973) allows the economic role of a particular species (e.g. for meat, wool, milk or traction) to be inferred (e.g.Legge 1981), whilst lipid analysis is effective at identifying the presence of milk products in the archaeological record (e.g. Dudd and Evershed 1998;Copley et al. 2005a). Recent developments in the detection of archaeological proteins have allowed the identification of milk proteins to species in both organic residues and human dental calculus (e.g. Hong et al. 2012;Buckley et al. 2013; Warinner et al. 2014).An additional approach to identify cattle (Bos taurus) dairying in prehistoric communities is explored in this paper: a possible relationship between calving seasonality, i.e. the distribution of births throughout the year, and economic focus. For economies focussed on the year-round production of fresh milk as a staple food product, it has been postulated that multiple-season calving would have been necessary (Towers et al. 2011;Balasse et al. 2012a;Gron et al. 2015). In contrast, a strategy of singleseason calving, probably in spring, may have been favoured for meat-based economies or economies focussed on storable milk products. Increasingly, birth seasonality of domestic herbivores has been investigated using intra-tooth isotope ratio analysis of molar enamel (e.g. Balasse et al. 2003;Balasse and Tresset 2007;Blaise and Balasse 2011;Towers et al. 2011;Balasse et al. 2012a;Balasse et al. 2012b;Tornero et al. 2013;Towers et al. 2014;Buchan et al. 2015;Gron et al. 2015).Each of the aforementioned techniques to identify p...

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Section: The Economic Focus Of Cattle Husbandry At Poolsupporting

confidence: 58%

Calving seasonality at Pool, Orkney during the first millennium AD: an investigation using intra-tooth isotope ratio analysis of cattle molar enamel

Towers

Mainland

Montgomery

et al. 2016

Environmental Archaeology

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“…Indeed, beeswax has been regularly detected in later archaeological and historic periods in lipid extracts from the fabric of unglazed pottery vessels 11 where it is assumed to be a residue of honey use in cooking, or from the use of vessels for processing wax combs [12][13][14] , with beeswax being absorbed through repeated contacts. Beeswax has also been detected as a fuel in lamps and in larger vessels used as proto beehives, for example Roman Greece (second century bc to fourth century ad) 15,16 and applied as a post firing treatment to waterproof vessels 17 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers

Roffet‐Salque

Regert

Evershed

et al. 2015

Nature

158

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“…The carbon number distributions of half of them, either indicative of degraded dairy or adipose fat, correlate well with δ 13 C values of C 16:0 and C 18:0 FAs, and Δ 13 C proxy values of the same samples (Mukherje et al 2008;Copley et al 2005a;20005b;2005c) (Fig. 22).…”

Section: From Biomolecular To Stable Isotope Markers: From Meat To Milkmentioning

confidence: 63%

“…The dairying trajectory has been systematically charted from the Neolithic to the Iron Age across the British Isles (Copley et al 2005a;2005b;2005c;Cramp 2014a). The results show site-to-site variation, although at some sites the intensity of dairying was high, and no mixing of ruminant and non-ruminant fats was evident in any of the vessels (Fig.…”

Section: From Biomolecular To Stable Isotope Markers: From Meat To Milkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neolithic pottery and the biomolecular archaeology of lipids

Budja

2014

Doc. praeh.

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Dairying in antiquity. III. Evidence from absorbed lipid residues dating to the British Neolithic

Cited by 119 publications

References 22 publications

Calving seasonality at Pool, Orkney during the first millennium AD: an investigation using intra-tooth isotope ratio analysis of cattle molar enamel

Calving seasonality at Pool, Orkney during the first millennium AD: an investigation using intra-tooth isotope ratio analysis of cattle molar enamel

Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers

Neolithic pottery and the biomolecular archaeology of lipids

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