Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers

Roffet‐Salque, Mélanie; Regert, Martine; Evershed, Richard P.; Outram, Alan K.; Cramp, Lucy J E; Decavallas, Orestes; Dunne, Julie; Gerbault, Pascale; Mileto, Simona; Mirabaud, Sigrid; Pääkkönen, Mirva; Smyth, Jessica; Šoberl, Lucija; Whelton, Helen L.; Ruiz, Alfonso Alday; Asplund, Henrik; Bartkowiak, Marta; Bayer-Niemeier, Eva; Belhouchet, Lotfi; Bernardini, Federico; Budja, Mihael; Cooney, Gabriel; Morera, Miriam Cubas; Danaher, Ed M.; Diniz, Mariana; Domboróczki, László; Fabbri, Cristina; González‐Urquijo, Jesús; Guilaine, Jean; Hachi, Slimane; Hartwell, Barrie; Hofmann, Daniela; Hohle, Isabel; Ibáñez, Juan José; Karul, Necmi; Kherbouche, Farid; Kiely, Jacinta; Kotsakis, Kostas; Lueth, Friedrich; Mallory, J. P.; Manen, Claire; Marciniak, Arkadiusz; Maurice-Chabard, Brigitte; Gonigle, Martin A. Mc; Mulazzani, Simone; Özdoğan, Mehmet; Perić, Olga; Perić, Slaviša; Petrasch, Jörg; Pétrequin, Anne-Marie; Pétrequin, Pierre; Poensgen, Ulrike; Pollard, C.; Poplin, François; Radi, Giovanna; Stadler, Peter F.; Stäuble, Harald; Tasić, Nenad; Urem-Kotsou, Dushka; Vuković, Jasna; Walsh, Fintan; Whittle, Alasdair; Wolfram, Sabine; Zapata-Peña, Lydia; Zoughlami, Jamel

doi:10.1038/nature15757

Cited by 158 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(28 reference statements)

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“…Dudd and Evershed 1998;Evershed et al 2002;Copley et al 2003;Evershed et al 2008;Dunne et al 2012;Debono Spiteri et al 2016). Likewise, aquatic products (Patrick et al 1985;Hansel et al 2004;Craig et al 2007;Hansel and Evershed 2009;Shoda et al 2017), plant oils and waxes denoting vegetable and plant oil consumption/ processing (Evershed et al 1991;Copley et al 2001a;Copley et al 2001b;Reber et al 2004;Copley et al 2005;Cramp et al 2011;Dunne et al 2016) and beeswax (Heron et al 1994;Charters et al 1995;Evershed et al 1997b;Regert et al 2001;Evershed et al 2003;Roffet-Salque et al 2015), resins, tars and bitumen (Beck et al 1989;Mills and White 1989;Evershed et al 1997a;van Bergen et al 1997;Urem-Kotsou et al 2002;Stern et al 2003;Buckley et al 2004;Stern et al 2008;Connan et al 2013;Brown et al 2014: Brettell et al 2014 have been identified in connection with a wide range of technological and cultural activities. On a broader scale, lipid residue analyses can provide insight into the domestication of plants and animals, the development of animal husbandry practices and ecological and environmental changes through time (Evershed 2008b;Evershed et al 2008;…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pastoralist Foodways Recorded in Organic Residues from Pottery Vessels of Modern Communities in Samburu, Kenya

Dunne

Grillo

Casanova

et al. 2018

J Archaeol Method Theory

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Organic residue analyses of archaeological ceramics can provide important insights into ancient foodways. To date, however, there has been little critical reflection on how lipid residues might (or might not) reflect dietary practices or subsistence strategies more generally. A combination of ethnoarchaeological research and chemical and isotopic analyses of lipid residues from pottery made and used by modern Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya was undertaken to supplement the interpretive framework used in archaeological investigations. A total of 63 potsherds were collected from various contexts, including settlement sites and rockshelters, and analysed using gas chromatography (GC), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and gas chromatography-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS). The results showed that the free fatty acids, palmitic (C 16:0 ) and stearic (C 18:0 ), dominated the lipid profiles, with extremely broad ranges of δ 13 C values. The majority of the Δ 13 C values from Samburu pots suggest that vessels were intensively used to process ruminant carcass products, yet the Samburu economy is not, in fact, meat-based at all. Despite an overall reliance on dairy products, milk is rarely processed in ceramic vessels, largely due to cultural prohibitions. Surprisingly, a number of vessels from one site, Naiborkeju Hill, were used to process dairy products. Compound-specific radiocarbon dating of lipids from these sherds suggests that this pottery originated from an earlier period, demonstrating a possible shift in ceramic use by pastoralist communities in this region over time. The overall conclusion is that lipid residues may not necessarily reflect, in a simple way, the day-to-day consumption or the perceived relative importance of different foodstuffs. In the Samburu case, lipid residues reflect the functional and ideological suitability of ceramics for processing only certain types of food (meat/fat/bones), despite an overall reliance on milk. These conclusions are important when considering the origins and development of African pastoralism, for example, as interpreted from the archaeological record.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pastoralist Foodways Recorded in Organic Residues from Pottery Vessels of Modern Communities in Samburu, Kenya

Dunne

Grillo

Casanova

et al. 2018

J Archaeol Method Theory

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“…Honeybees have probably been managed by European farmers since the Neolithic age [8], and feral populations occurred in northern Europe until the introduction of Varroa mites [9]. Hence, honeybees have a long history of coexistence with wild flower-visiting insects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental evidence that honeybees depress wild insect densities in a flowering crop

et al. 2016

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While addition of managed honeybees (Apis mellifera) improves pollination of many entomophilous crops, it is unknown if it simultaneously suppresses the densities of wild insects through competition. To investigate this, we added 624 honeybee hives to 23 fields of oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) over 2 years and made sure that the areas around 21 other fields were free from honeybee hives. We demonstrate that honeybee addition depresses the densities of wild insects (bumblebees, solitary bees, hoverflies, marchflies, other flies, and other flying and flower-visiting insects) even in a massive flower resource such as oilseed rape. The effect was independent of the complexity of the surrounding landscape, but increased with the size of the crop field, which suggests that the effect was caused by spatial displacement of wild insects. Our results have potential implications both for the pollination of crops (if displacement of wild pollinators offsets benefits achieved by adding honeybees) and for conservation of wild insects (if displacement results in negative fitness consequences).

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“…The emergence of the lost-wax technique at Mehrgarh could have been triggered by several factors. The availability of beeswax is attested in the Near East at this period28. Second, recent works have proposed that lost-wax casting has been adopted more for the central role of beeswax as a ritually important material than for a technical need29.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High spatial dynamics-photoluminescence imaging reveals the metallurgy of the earliest lost-wax cast object

et al. 2016

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Photoluminescence spectroscopy is a key method to monitor defects in semiconductors from nanophotonics to solar cell systems. Paradoxically, its great sensitivity to small variations of local environment becomes a handicap for heterogeneous systems, such as are encountered in environmental, medical, ancient materials sciences and engineering. Here we demonstrate that a novel full-field photoluminescence imaging approach allows accessing the spatial distribution of crystal defect fluctuations at the crystallite level across centimetre-wide fields of view. This capacity is illustrated in archaeology and material sciences. The coexistence of two hitherto indistinguishable non-stoichiometric cuprous oxide phases is revealed in a 6,000-year-old amulet from Mehrgarh (Baluchistan, Pakistan), identified as the oldest known artefact made by lost-wax casting and providing a better understanding of this fundamental invention. Low-concentration crystal defect fluctuations are readily mapped within ZnO nanowires. High spatial dynamics-photoluminescence imaging holds great promise for the characterization of bulk heterogeneous systems across multiple disciplines.

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Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers

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Cited by 158 publications

References 28 publications

Pastoralist Foodways Recorded in Organic Residues from Pottery Vessels of Modern Communities in Samburu, Kenya

Pastoralist Foodways Recorded in Organic Residues from Pottery Vessels of Modern Communities in Samburu, Kenya

Experimental evidence that honeybees depress wild insect densities in a flowering crop

High spatial dynamics-photoluminescence imaging reveals the metallurgy of the earliest lost-wax cast object

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