Anita Radini

Dental Calculus Reveals Unique Insights into Food Items, Cooking and Plant Processing in Prehistoric Central Sudan

Accessing information on plant consumption before the adoption of agriculture is challenging. However, there is growing evidence for use of locally available wild plants from an increasing number of pre-agrarian sites, suggesting broad ecological knowledge. The extraction of chemical compounds and microfossils from dental calculus removed from ancient teeth offers an entirely new perspective on dietary reconstruction, as it provides empirical results on material that is already in the mouth. Here we present a suite of results from the multi-period Central Sudanese site of Al Khiday. We demonstrate the ingestion in both pre-agricultural and agricultural periods of Cyperus rotundus tubers. This plant is a good source of carbohydrates and has many useful medicinal and aromatic qualities, though today it is considered to be the worlds most costly weed. Its ability to inhibit Streptococcus mutans may have contributed to the unexpectedly low level of caries found in the agricultural population. Other evidence extracted from the dental calculus includes smoke inhalation, dry (roasting) and wet (heating in water) cooking, a second plant possibly from the Triticaceae tribe and plant fibres suggestive of raw material preparation through chewing.

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

Significance Pottery has had a central role in human society for many millennia, but the reasons for the emergence and spread of this technology are poorly understood. First invented by groups of hunter–gatherers living in East Asia during the last glacial period, production only began to flourish with rising global temperatures in the Holocene, but the reasons for its uptake and spread are unknown. Through chemical analysis of their contents, we herein provide, to our knowledge, the first direct evidence of pottery use across this climatic transition. Contrary to expectations, ceramic vessels had a remarkably consistent use, predominantly for processing aquatic resources, indicating that cultural rather than environmental factors were most important for their widespread uptake. 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 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.

Desert Migrations: people, environment and culture in the Libyan Sahara

The Desert Migrations Project is a new interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional collaborative project between the Society for Libyan Studies and the Department of Antiquities. The geographical focus of the study is the Fazzan region of southwest Libya and in thematic terms we aim to address the theme of migration in the broadest sense, encompassing the movement of people, ideas/knowledge and material culture into and out of Fazzan, along with evidence of shifting climatic and ecological boundaries over time. The report describes the principal sub-strands of the project’s first season in January 2007, with some account of research questions, methods employed and some preliminary results. Three main sub-projects are reported on. The first concerns the improved understanding of long-term climatic and environmental changes derived from a detailed palaeoenvironmental study of palaeolake sediments. This geo-science work runs alongside and feeds directly into both archaeological sub-projects, the first relating to prehistoric activity and mobility around and between a series of palaeolakes during wetter climatic cycles; the second to the excavation of burials in the Wadi al-Ajal, exploring the changing relationship between material culture, identity and ethnicity across time, from prehistory to the early Islamic period (the span of the main cemetery zones). In addition, some rock art research and a survey of historic period sites was undertaken in the Wadi ash-Shati and Ubari sand sea.

Neanderthals, trees and dental calculus: new evidence from El Sidrón

Abstract Analysis of dental calculus is increasingly important in archaeology, although the focus has hitherto been on dietary reconstruction. Non-edible material has, however, recently been extracted from the dental calculus of a Neanderthal population from the 49 000-year-old site of El Sidrón, Spain, in the form of fibre and chemical compounds that indicate conifer wood. Associated dental wear confirms that the teeth were being used for non-dietary activities. These results highlight the importance of dental calculus as a source of wider biographical information, and demonstrate the need to include associated data within research, in particular tooth wear, to maximise this valuable resource.

DMP V: investigations in 2009 of cemeteries and related sites on the West Side of the Taqallit promontory

The ‘Burials and Identity’ team of the Desert Migrations Project carried out two main excavations in the 2009 season, at the monumental Garamantian cemeteries of TAG001 and TAG012, by the Taqallit headland. In addition, a detailed survey was made of cemeteries and other sites on the west side of the Taqallit headland, to set the two main cemetery excavations in context. A total of over 2,100 individual burials was recorded in this small area of a few square kilometres. This cemetery survey was combined with further research on the well-preserved foggara systems in this area, which originate at the escarpment among the cemeteries and run in a north-westerly direction towards the valley centre, where some additional Garamantian settlement sites were also located. The foggara research also involved excavation at four locations to try to elucidate issues relating to the dating of these. A total of 22 burials was investigated at TAG001, an imposing cemetery of stone-built stepped tombs that had been badly damaged by illegal bulldozing in the 1990s. Although these had been subjected to robbing at some point in the past, many preserved considerable parts of the skeletons buried within and some surprisingly complete artifact groups. Of particular importance are a series of Garamantian necklaces in ostrich eggshell, carnelian and glass beads, which we were able to lift in perfect sequence and restring. At TAG012, about 2 km north of the Taqallit headland, we excavated an area of a mudbrick cemetery, exposing 12 square/rectangular tombs. Two further burials were excavated at the dispersed cemetery TAG006, in both cases involving tombs that had an interesting stratigraphical relationship with foggara spoil mounds.

Dental calculus reveals Mesolithic foragers in the Balkans consumed domesticated plant foods

Significance The starch record entrapped in dental calculus of Mesolithic human teeth from the site of Vlasac in the central Balkans provides direct evidence that complex Late Mesolithic foragers of this region consumed domesticated cereal grains. Our results challenge the established view of the Neolithization in Europe that domestic cereals were introduced to the Balkans around ∼6200 calibrated (cal.) BC as a part of a “package” that also included domesticated animals and artifacts, which accompanied the arrival of Neolithic communities. We infer that Neolithic domesticated plants were transmitted independently from the rest of Neolithic novelties from ∼6600 cal. BC onwards, reaching inland foragers deep in the Balkan hinterland through established social networks that linked forager and farmer groups. Researchers agree that domesticated plants were introduced into southeast Europe from southwest Asia as a part of a Neolithic “package,” which included domesticated animals and artifacts typical of farming communities. It is commonly believed that this package reached inland areas of the Balkans by ∼6200 calibrated (cal.) BC or later. Our analysis of the starch record entrapped in dental calculus of Mesolithic human teeth at the site of Vlasac in the Danube Gorges of the central Balkans provides direct evidence that already by ∼6600 cal. BC, if not earlier, Late Mesolithic foragers of this region consumed domestic cereals, such as Triticum monococcum, Triticum dicoccum, and Hordeum distichon, which were also the main crops found among Early Neolithic communities of southeast Europe. We infer that “exotic” Neolithic domesticated plants were introduced to southern Europe independently almost half a millennium earlier than previously thought, through networks that enabled exchanges between inland Mesolithic foragers and early farming groups found along the Aegean coast of Turkey.

DMP IX: Summary Report on the Fourth Season of Excavations of the Burials and Identity team

The fourth season of the Burials and Identity component of the Desert Migrations Project in 2010 focused on completion of excavation work at two main cemeteries (TAG001 and TAG012) and smaller-scale sampling work at a number of nearby cemeteries. The investigation of a number of burials in a semi-nucleated escarpment cemetery TAG063 produced interesting new information on Proto-Urban Garamantian funerary rites, dating to the latter centuries bc . The excavations at TAG001 were extended to two areas of the cemetery characterised by different burial types to the stepped tombs that were excavated in 2009. A second type of fairly monumental burial was identified, but these had been heavily robbed and it was not possible to demonstrate conclusively that these pre-dated the stepped tombs. Most of the other burials excavated were simple shaft burials and were relatively sparsely furnished with imported goods, in comparison with the larger tombs, though quite a lot of organic material was identified (matting, wood, gourds, textiles and leather). At TAG012, a series of additional mudbrick tombs was emptied. All had been robbed, but pockets of the original fill and associated finds survived intact, yielding some interesting assemblages. The majority of these tombs appear to be Late Garamantian, though some contained artefacts from much earlier times.

DMP X: Survey and Landscape Conservation Issues around the Tāqallit headland

Survey by the DMP Burials and Identity team around the Tāqallit headland in 2009–2010 has revealed in exceptional detail a well-preserved Garamantian landscape, comprising extensive cemeteries, foggara irrigation systems and numerous oasis settlements. However, this remarkable survival of the Garamantian landscape was found in 2010 to be under direct and imminent threat of destruction. This report describes the landscape features recorded and the steps taken to try to preserve the evidence from obliteration in the face of modern agricultural development. Important new information was recorded about the date and furnishing of some key types of Proto-Urban tombs, linking with a refined view of the relationship of these cemeteries to contemporary foggara construction and the creation of pioneer farming settlement in the Tāqallit region. Significant additional details of the foggara systems were recorded through a combination of satellite image interpretation, surface observation and selective descent into rock-cut shafts. The discovery of an unexpected number of ancient settlements and structures of Garamantian date represents another major achievement of the work. The composite picture of the Garamantian landscape encompassing cemeteries, foggaras and settlements is arguably the most complete yet recorded in the FP/DMP work.

Dental calculus and isotopes provide direct evidence of fish and plant consumption in Mesolithic Mediterranean

In this contribution we dismantle the perceived role of marine resources and plant foods in the subsistence economy of Holocene foragers of the Central Mediterranean using a combination of dental calculus and stable isotope analyses. The discovery of fish scales and flesh fragments, starch granules and other plant and animal micro-debris in the dental calculus of a Mesolithic forager dated to the end of the 8th millenium BC and buried in the Vlakno Cave on Dugi Otok Island in the Croatian Archipelago demonstrates that marine resources were regularly consumed by the individual together with a variety of plant foods. Since previous stable isotope data in the Eastern Adriatic and the Mediterranean region emphasises that terrestrial-based resources contributed mainly to Mesolithic diets in the Mediterranean Basin, our results provide an alternative view of the dietary habits of Mesolithic foragers in the Mediterranean region based on a combination of novel methodologies and data.

The identification of archaeological eggshell using peptide markers

ABSTRACT Avian eggshell survives well in alkaline and neutral soils, but its potential as an archaeological resource remains largely unexplored, mainly due to difficulties in its identification. Here we exploit the release of novel bird genomes and, for the first time on eggshell, use MALDI-ToF (matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation-time of flight) mass spectrometry in combination with peptide sequencing by LC-MS/MS. The eggshell proteome is revealed as unexpectedly complex, with 5755 proteins identified for a reference collection comprising 23 bird species. We determined 782 m/z markers useful for eggshell identification, 583 of which could be assigned to known eggshell peptide sequences. These were used to identify eggshell fragments recovered from a medieval site at Freeschool Lane, Leicester. We discuss the specificity of the peptide markers and highlight the importance of assessing the level of taxonomic identification achievable for archaeological interpretation.