The importance of wild resources as a reflection of the resilience and changing nature of early agricultural systems in East Asia and Europe

We examine the changing importance of wild starch rich plant staples, predominantly tree nuts, in early agricultural societies in East Asia and Europe, focusing on Korea, Japan, and Britain. A comparative review highlights variations in the importance of wild plant staples compared to domesticated crops. The Korean Middle to Late Chulmun periods (c. 3,500–1,500 BC) was characterized by a high reliance on nuts alongside millet. This declines with the transition to rice agriculture, but remains significant during the Mumun period (c. 1,500–300 BC). In Japan, the arrival of rice and millets in the Yayoi Period (c. 1,000 BC−250 AD) saw continued evidence for high levels of reliance on wild resources, which declines only in the Kofun and early historical periods. In Early Neolithic Britain (c. 4,000–3,300 BC) cereal agriculture is accompanied by high evidence for wild plant foods. But during the Middle to Late Neolithic (3,300–c. 2,400/2,200 BC) cereals were abandoned on the mainland with hazelnuts becoming a prominent plant staple. Agriculture returned in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC, followed by a strong decline in wild plant food use during the Middle to Late Bronze Age (1,700–700 BC). Such patterns have previously been attributed to the slow adoption of farming by indigenous peoples, with a continued reliance on wild resources. In light of evidence demonstrating that the dispersal of agriculture was largely driven by a mixture of demic-diffusion and introgression of hunter-gatherers into agricultural groups, a reinterpretation of the role of wild foods is needed. It is argued that the relative importance of wild plant staples provides an indicator of the stability and dependability of agricultural and social systems. A heavy reliance on wild foods in early agricultural societies is tied to the slow adaptation of domesticated crops to new environments, where agricultural and social landscapes are yet to be firmly established, and social systems that could mitigate for poor harvests and storage were often absent. The retained lengthy persistence of wild plant staples in East Asian subsistence systems compared to the British Isles likely reflects differences in the ecological and labor demands for rice compared to Western Asiatic cereals

Pottery use by early Holocene hunter-gatherers of the Korean peninsula closely linked with the exploitation of marine resources

The earliest pottery on the Korean peninsula dates to the early Holocene, notably later than other regions of East Asia, such as Japan, the Russian Far East and Southern China. To shed light on the function of such early Korean pottery and to understand the motivations for its adoption, organic residue analysis was conducted on pottery sherds and adhered surface deposit on the wall of pottery vessels (foodcrusts) excavated from the Sejuk shell midden (7.7–6.8ka calBP) on the southeastern coast and the Jukbyeon-ri site (7.9–6.9ka calBP) on the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula, that represents the earliest pottery assemblages with reliable radiocarbon dates. Through chemical and isotopic residue analysis, we conclude that the use of pottery at these sites was oriented towards marine resources, supported by lipid biomarkers typical of aquatic organisms and stable carbon isotope values that matched authentic marine reference fats. The findings contrast with other archaeological evidence, which shows that a wider range of available food resources were exploited. Therefore, we conclude pottery was used selectively for processing aquatic organisms perhaps including the rendering of aquatic oils for storage. Early pottery use in Korea is broadly similar to other prehistoric temperate hunter-gatherers, such as in Japan, northern Europe and northern America. However, it is also notable that elaborately decorated red burnished pottery excavated from isolated location at the Jukbyeon-ri site had a different usage pattern, which indicates that division of pottery use by vessel form was established even at this early stage

カンコク ノ ツキウス カラ カンガエル コダイ ニホン ノ ショク

P(論文)departmental bulletin pape

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-3β-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 Jōmon site of Torihama inwestern 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

Late Glacial hunter-gatherer pottery in the Russian Far East : Indications of diversity in origins and use

During the Late Glacial, hunter-gatherers began using ceramic cooking containers in three separate geographic regions of East Asia: China, Japan and in the Russian Far East. While recent research has clarified the use of early pottery in Japan, very little is known about what led to the emergence of pottery in the other two areas, including the likely environmental, economic or cultural drivers. In this paper we focus on a series of key sites along the Amur River in the Russian Far East, where early pottery has been recovered from securely-dated contexts that span ca. 16,200 to 10,200 years ago (cal BP). Interpreting how these ceramic vessels were used has been difficult because the region’s acidic soils make palaeo-economic reconstructions challenging. To address this gap in knowledge we undertook lipid residue analysis of 28 pot sherds from the sites of Khummi, Gasya, and Goncharka 1 on the Lower Amur River, and the Gromatukha site on the Middle Amur. Our results indicate that pottery was employed to process aquatic oils at sites on the Lower Amur, a pattern of use that aligns closely with studies conducted in Japan, and suggests that fishing – probably of salmonids and freshwater fish – was becoming increasingly important during this period. In contrast, the results from the Middle Amur show a significant contribution of lipids from ruminant animals, indicating that these vessels were being used in different ways. Interestingly, these regional differences in pottery use also map onto contrasting manufacturing techniques, with vessels from the Middle and from the Lower Amur forming distinct pottery-making traditions. These combined insights appear to indicate a greater degree of variability in the development and use of early pottery in East Asia than has hitherto been indicated

Investigating the formation and diagnostic value of ω-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids in ancient pottery

Long chain ω‐(o‐alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids (APAAs) derived from the heating of unsaturated fatty acids have been widely used for the identification of aquatic products in archaeological ceramic vessels. To date, little attention has been paid to the diagnostic potential of shorter chain (<C20) APAAs, despite their frequent occurrence. Here, a range of laboratory and field experiments and analyses of archaeological samples were undertaken to investigate whether APAAs could be used to further differentiate different commodities. The results of this study provide new insights regarding conditions for the formation of APAAs and enable us to propose novel criteria to distinguish different natural products

Lipid residues in ancient pastoralist pottery from Kazakhstan reveal regional differences in cooking practices

The Bronze Age—Iron Age transition in Central Asia (ca. 800 BCE) was a period of significant cultural change that was heavily influenced by greater population interaction and mobility. Indeed, scholars have increasingly emphasized the role that “food globalization in prehistory” has played in defining this period. In the mountain foothills of Kazakhstan, culinary traditions from across Eurasia were combined through the use of Southwest Asian wheat, barley, and livestock (cattle, sheep, and goats) with East Asian foxtail and broomcorn millets. The development of food cultures during this period has been investigated by archaeobotanical and isotopic analysis, yet lipid residues from pottery, which directly represent culinary practices, have not been adequately examined. In this study, lipid residue analysis was conducted on 72 pottery sherds, excavated from three burial mounds and one non-burial, ritual site located in Kazakhstan, dating to ca. 700–200 BCE. A particularly informative observation was the frequency of miliacin, a biomarker of broomcorn millet, detected in residues that corresponded well with previously published regional differences observed in carbon isotope ratios of human remains that indicate the consumption of C4 plants. This study also demonstrates continuity of Bronze Age dairying traditions into the Iron Age. Finally, this study sheds new light on the diversity of food cultures and mortuary practices in this region, which were not uniform across either space or time

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