Molecular and isotopic evidence for the processing of starchy plants in Early Neolithic pottery from China.

Organic residue analysis of ancient ceramic vessels enables the investigation of natural resources that were used in daily cooking practices in different part of the world. Despite many methodological advances, the utilization of plants in pottery has been difficult to demonstrate chemically, hindering the study of their role in ancient society, a topic that is especially important to understanding early agricultural practices at the start of the Neolithic period. Here, we present the first lipid residue study on the Chinese Neolithic pottery dated to 5.0 k - 4.7 k cal BC from the Tianluoshan site, Zhejiang province, a key site with early evidence for rice domestication. Through the identification of novel molecular biomarkers and extensive stable isotope analysis, we suggest that the pottery in Tianluoshan were largely used for processing starchy plant foods. These results not only highlight the significance of starchy plants in Neolithic southern China but also show a clear difference with other contemporary sites in northern Eurasia, where pottery is clearly orientated to aquatic resource exploitation. These differences may be linked with the early development of rice agriculture in China compared to its much later adoption in adjacent northerly regions.

The impact of environmental change on the use of early pottery by East Asian hunter-gatherers.

The invention of pottery was a fundamental technological advancement with far-reaching economic and cultural consequences. Pottery containers first emerged in East Asia during the Late Pleistocene in a wide range of environmental settings, but became particularly prominent and much more widely dispersed after climatic warming at the start of the Holocene. Some archaeologists argue that this increasing usage was driven by environmental factors, as warmer climates would have generated a wider range of terrestrial plant and animal resources that required processing in pottery. However, this hypothesis has never been directly tested. Here, in one of the largest studies of its kind, we conducted organic residue analysis of >800 pottery vessels selected from 46 Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites located across the Japanese archipelago to identify their contents. Our results demonstrate that pottery had a strong association with the processing of aquatic resources, irrespective of the ecological setting. Contrary to expectations, this association remained stable even after the onset of Holocene warming, including in more southerly areas, where expanding forests provided new opportunities for hunting and gathering. Nevertheless, the results indicate that a broader array of aquatic resources was processed in pottery after the start of the Holocene. We suggest this marks a significant change in the role of pottery of hunter-gatherers, corresponding to an increased volume of production, greater variation in forms and sizes, the rise of intensified fishing, the onset of shellfish exploitation, and reduced residential mobility.

First molecular and isotopic evidence of millet processing in prehistoric pottery vessels.

Analysis of organic residues in pottery vessels has been successful in detecting a range of animal and plant products as indicators of food preparation and consumption in the past. However, the identification of plant remains, especially grain crops in pottery, has proved elusive. Extending the spectrum is highly desirable, not only to strengthen our understanding of the dispersal of crops from centres of domestication but also to determine modes of food processing, artefact function and the culinary significance of the crop. Here, we propose a new approach to identify millet in pottery vessels, a crop that spread throughout much of Eurasia during prehistory following its domestication, most likely in northern China. We report the successful identification of miliacin (olean-18-en-3ß-ol methyl ether), a pentacyclic triterpene methyl ether that is enriched in grains of common/broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), in Bronze Age pottery vessels from the Korean Peninsula and northern Europe. The presence of millet is supported by enriched carbon stable isotope values of bulk charred organic matter sampled from pottery vessel surfaces and extracted n-alkanoic acids, consistent with a C4 plant origin. These data represent the first identification of millet in archaeological ceramic vessels, providing a means to track the introduction, spread and consumption of this important crop.

Ancient lipids document continuity in the use of early hunter-gatherer pottery through 9,000 years of Japanese prehistory.

The earliest pots in the world are from East Asia and date to the Late Pleistocene. However, ceramic vessels were only produced in large numbers during the warmer and more stable climatic conditions of the Holocene. It has long been assumed that the expansion of pottery was linked with increased sedentism and exploitation of new resources that became available with the ameliorated climate, but this hypothesis has never been tested. Through chemical analysis of their contents, we herein investigate the use of pottery across an exceptionally long 9,000-y sequence from the Jomon site of Torihama in western Japan, intermittently occupied from the Late Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene. Molecular and isotopic analyses of lipids from 143 vessels provides clear evidence that pottery across this sequence was predominantly used for cooking marine and freshwater resources, with evidence for diversification in the range of aquatic products processed during the Holocene. Conversely, there is little indication that ruminant animals or plants were processed in pottery, although it is evident from the faunal and macrobotanical remains that these foods were heavily exploited. Supported by other residue analysis data from Japan, our results show that the link between pottery and fishing was established in the Late Paleolithic and lasted well into the Holocene, despite environmental and socio-economic change. Cooking aquatic products in pottery represents an enduring social aspect of East Asian hunter-gatherers, a tradition based on a dependable technology for exploiting a sustainable resource in an uncertain and changing world.