Organic residue analysis shows sub-regional patterns in the use of pottery by Northern European hunter–gatherers

Abstract

The introduction of pottery vessels to Europe has long been seen as closely linked with the spread of agriculture and pastoralism from the Near East. The adoption of pottery technology by hunter–gatherers in Northern and Eastern Europe does not fit this paradigm, and its role within these communities is so far unresolved. To investigate the motivations for hunter–gatherer pottery use, here, we present the systematic analysis of the contents of 528 early vessels from the Baltic Sea region, mostly dating to the late 6th–5th millennium cal BC, using molecular and isotopic characterization techniques. The results demonstrate clear sub-regional trends in the use of ceramics by hunter–gatherers; aquatic resources in the Eastern Baltic, non-ruminant animal fats in the Southeastern Baltic, and a more variable use, including ruminant animal products, in the Western Baltic, potentially including dairy. We found surprisingly little evidence for the use of ceramics for non-culinary activities, such as the production of resins. We attribute the emergence of these sub-regional cuisines to the diffusion of new culinary ideas afforded by the adoption of pottery, e.g. cooking and combining foods, but culturally contextualized and influenced by traditional practices.

Micro-contextual identification of archaeological lipid biomarkers using resin-impregnated sediment slabs

“…Using different plots commonly used in archaeological lipid analysis [21][22][23]65 also show that the differences in the position of our LS and DD samples (Fig. 3a-c) are mainly caused by the effect of the resin in the C 18:0 isotopic signal.…”

“…The experimental SC LS and DD samples also yielded presence of α-ω-dicarboxylic acids, specifically nonanedioic acid (azelaic acid), decanedioic acid (sebacic acid) and undecadioic acid. Such compounds are naturally present in plant oils or may form from heating of animal fats 23,51,59,61 , which is our case. Azelaic and sebacic acid are sometimes used in organic polymeric resin mixtures 63 , and specifically azelaic acid was identified among the resin control samples (R1 and R4), hindering the possibility of using α-ω-dicarboxylic acids as potential biomarkers in DD samples.…”

“…www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Stable isotope δ 13 C analysis. We performed Specific Isotope Analysis (CSIA), a widely used technique in archaeological science [21][22][23] , to determine the δ 13 C values of C 16:0 and C 18:0 fatty acids in our sample set. We followed the methodology applied by Jambrina-Enríquez et al 22 .…”

“…Combining data from archaeological soil micromorphology and gas chromatography holds great potential for archaeological interpretation [18][19][20] . Micromorphology provides high resolution contextual data and gas chromatography provides molecular information on lipid content, particularly if coupled with isotopic ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) for compound specific isotope analysis (CSIA) [21][22][23] . Lipids are organic molecules that preserve well in sedimentary contexts for long periods of time [24][25][26] and they can be informative of human activities, diets and paleoenvironments [27][28][29] .…”

Compound specific isotope analysis of lipid residues provides the earliest direct evidence of dairy product processing in South Asia

“…On the other hand, cereal grains have low lipid content which can be easily overshadowed by animal fats 73 , 86 , 87 . Recent studies have pointed out that mixing between animal fats and plant oils can potentially affect the Δ 13 C values, based on simulated results 88 , 89 . While mixing of ruminant adipose fats with C 3 plant oils can never produce Δ 13 C values similar to dairy, the simulated mixing of C 3 ruminant fats with C 4 plants was shown to be able to produce dairy Δ 13 C values 89 .…”