Reconstructing Aquatic Resource Exploitation in Human Prehistory Using Lipid Biomarkers and Stable Isotopes

Cramp, Lucy J E; Evershed, Richard P.

doi:10.1016/b978-0-08-095975-7.01225-0

Cited by 71 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…These compounds form during the prolonged heating of mono‐ and polyunsaturated fatty acids at ≥ 270°C, and the presence of C 18 –C 22 APAAs is considered to be a biomarker for aquatic resources. The weak appearance of APAAs in the sample may be explained by the firing temperature not reaching 270°C, which has been described as a precondition for APAAs to form (Cramp and Evershed ). At 400°C (8 h) hardly any lipids are detectable.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Isoprenoid acids are an established biomarker for the presence of aquatic resources (Evershed et al . ; Cramp and Evershed ; Lucquin et al . ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All isoprenoid acids-TMTD (4,8,12-trimethyltridecanoic acid); pristanic acid (2,6,10,14-tetramethylpentadecanoic acid); and phytanic acid (3,7,11,15tetramethylhexadecanoic acid)-are present in these samples in high concentrations. Isoprenoid acids are an established biomarker for the presence of aquatic resources Cramp and Evershed 2014;Lucquin et al 2016a). Mid-chain alcohols and n-alkanes are also present in the unfired samples.…”

Section: Lipid Profilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leftovers: The presence of manufacture‐derived aquatic lipids in Alaskan pottery

et al. 2019

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Lipids preserved within the walls of ancient pottery vessels are routinely analysed to reveal their original contents. The provenience of aquatic lipids in pottery is generally connected to vessel function (e.g., for cooking or storing fish, shellfish and aquatic mammals). However, ethnographic reports from early historic Alaska mention the use of aquatic oils for waterproofing low‐fired pottery. Results of lipid residue studies on Alaskan pottery reflect an exclusive function of pottery to process aquatic resources. However, can one be sure these residues are the product of vessel function and not a remnant of the manufacturing process? The study presents the results of an experiment where the preservation of aquatic lipids during the firing process at different temperatures was measured. It was found that nearly all lipids were removed at firing temperatures of ≥ 400°C. Petrographic analysis of Alaskan pottery samples indicates that firing temperatures were generally > 550°C but < 800°C. The contribution of pre‐firing manufacture‐derived lipids to samples fired at these temperatures may be regarded as negligible. While the possible presence of aquatic lipids from post‐firing surface treatments cannot be excluded, such treatments appear unnecessary for well‐fired pottery.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Isoprenoid acids are an established biomarker for the presence of aquatic resources (Evershed et al . ; Cramp and Evershed ; Lucquin et al . ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Lipid Profilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leftovers: The presence of manufacture‐derived aquatic lipids in Alaskan pottery

et al. 2019

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“…The analysis and interpretation of lipid residues followed established protocols (e.g. Evershed et al 1990;Heron and Evershed 1993;Cramp and Evershed 2014). In brief, the surface of each sample sherd was cleaned using a grinder, to remove exogenous lipids.…”

Section: Lipid Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Dietary Study of the Kamegaoka Culture Population during the Final Jomon Period, Japan, Using Stable Isotope and Lipid Analyses of Ceramic Residues

Horiuchi¹,

Miyata

Kamijo

et al. 2015

Radiocarbon

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The Jomon culture is an ancient Japanese society that existed during approximately 14,000 to 400 BC and which is characterized by Jomon (cord pattern) pottery. To investigate the paleodiet of the people of northeastern Tohoku in Japan during the Final Jomon period (about 1000–400 BC), we studied three sites in Aomori Prefecture, the center of the Kamegaoka culture. The Fubinashi site is on the coast and was supported by a rich fishing culture. Imazu was a coastal salt-making site. Sugisawa is a mountainous inland site on the banks of a river. We determined the 14C ages of the interior and exterior surfaces of carbonized material on potsherds and compared the data with pottery typology and age to study the marine reservoir effect. We also analyzed the bulk carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes and C:N ratios to determine the presence of aquatic foodstuffs. The organic residues from pottery typology corresponding to the described analyses provided a general perspective of differences in the ancient diets at each site. When we recovered sufficient lipids, we analyzed compound-specific stable isotopes of fatty acids to obtain a multilateral view of those diets. Our findings indicate that the diets of inhabitants of both Fubinashi and Imazu consisted primarily of marine products and some terrestrial foodstuffs, whereas people from Sugisawa processed mainly C3 plants and some terrestrial animals and aquatic commodities.

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“…In reference experiments it has been shown how heating of long-chain polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids (as commonly encountered in aquatic lipids) can form a series of ω-(o-alkylphenyl)-alkanoic acids (APAAs) and vicinal dihydroxy fatty acids [10][11][12] . While the original unsaturated fatty acids are almost never recovered, their degradation products are routinely used as proxies to infer the original presence of these lipids 5,13,14 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Digging deeper - A new data mining workflow for improved processing and interpretation of high resolution GC-Q-TOF MS data in archaeological research

Korf

Hammann

Schmid

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry profiling is the most established method for the analysis of organic residues, particularly lipids, from archaeological contexts. This technique allows the decryption of hidden chemical information associated with archaeological artefacts, such as ceramic pottery fragments. The molecular and isotopic compositions of such residues can be used to reconstruct past resource use, and hence address major questions relating to patterns of subsistence, diet and ritual practices in the past. A targeted data analysis approach, based on previous findings reported in the literature is common but greatly depends on the investigator's prior knowledge of specific compound classes and their mass spectrometric behaviour, and poses the risk of missing unknown, potentially diagnostic compounds. Organic residues from post-prehistoric archaeological samples often lead to highly complex chromatograms, which makes manual chromatogram inspection very tedious and time consuming, especially for large datasets. This poses a significant limitation regarding the scale and interpretative scopes of such projects. Therefore, we have developed a non-targeted data mining workflow to extract a higher number of known and unknown compounds from the raw data to reduce investigator's bias and to vastly accelerate overall analysis time. The workflow covers all steps from raw data handling, feature selection, and compound identification up to statistical interpretation.

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Reconstructing Aquatic Resource Exploitation in Human Prehistory Using Lipid Biomarkers and Stable Isotopes

Cited by 71 publications

References 80 publications

Leftovers: The presence of manufacture‐derived aquatic lipids in Alaskan pottery

Leftovers: The presence of manufacture‐derived aquatic lipids in Alaskan pottery

A Dietary Study of the Kamegaoka Culture Population during the Final Jomon Period, Japan, Using Stable Isotope and Lipid Analyses of Ceramic Residues

Digging deeper - A new data mining workflow for improved processing and interpretation of high resolution GC-Q-TOF MS data in archaeological research

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