Hayley Saul

Earliest evidence for the use of pottery

Pottery was a hunter-gatherer innovation that first emerged in East Asia between 20,000 and 12,000 calibrated years before present (cal bp), towards the end of the Late Pleistocene epoch, a period of time when humans were adjusting to changing climates and new environments. Ceramic container technologies were one of a range of late glacial adaptations that were pivotal to structuring subsequent cultural trajectories in different regions of the world, but the reasons for their emergence and widespread uptake are poorly understood. The first ceramic containers must have provided prehistoric hunter-gatherers with attractive new strategies for processing and consuming foodstuffs, but virtually nothing is known of how early pots were used. Here we report the chemical analysis of food residues associated with Late Pleistocene pottery, focusing on one of the best-studied prehistoric ceramic sequences in the world, the Japanese Jōmon. We demonstrate that lipids can be recovered reliably from charred surface deposits adhering to pottery dating from about 15,000 to 11,800 cal bp (the Incipient Jōmon period), the oldest pottery so far investigated, and that in most cases these organic compounds are unequivocally derived from processing freshwater and marine organisms. Stable isotope data support the lipid evidence and suggest that most of the 101 charred deposits analysed, from across the major islands of Japan, were derived from high-trophic-level aquatic food. Productive aquatic ecotones were heavily exploited by late glacial foragers, perhaps providing an initial impetus for investment in ceramic container technology, and paving the way for further intensification of pottery use by hunter-gatherers in the early Holocene epoch. Now that we have shown that it is possible to analyse organic residues from some of the world’s earliest ceramic vessels, the subsequent development of this critical technology can be clarified through further widespread testing of hunter-gatherer pottery from later periods.

Ancient lipids reveal continuity in culinary practices across the transition to agriculture in Northern Europe

Farming transformed societies globally. Yet, despite more than a century of research, there is little consensus on the speed or completeness of this fundamental change and, consequently, on its principal drivers. For Northern Europe, the debate has often centered on the rich archaeological record of the Western Baltic, but even here it is unclear how quickly or completely people abandoned wild terrestrial and marine resources after the introduction of domesticated plants and animals at ∼4000 calibrated years B.C. Ceramic containers are found ubiquitously on these sites and contain remarkably well-preserved lipids derived from the original use of the vessel. Reconstructing culinary practices from this ceramic record can contribute to longstanding debates concerning the origins of farming. Here we present data on the molecular and isotopic characteristics of lipids extracted from 133 ceramic vessels and 100 carbonized surface residues dating to immediately before and after the first evidence of domesticated animals and plants in the Western Baltic. The presence of specific lipid biomarkers, notably ω-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids, and the isotopic composition of individual n-alkanoic acids clearly show that a significant proportion (∼20%) of ceramic vessels with lipids preserved continued to be used for processing marine and freshwater resources across the transition to agriculture in this region. Although changes in pottery use are immediately evident, our data challenge the popular notions that economies were completely transformed with the arrival of farming and that Neolithic pottery was exclusively associated with produce from domesticated animals and plants.

Illuminating the Late Mesolithic: residue analysis of ‘blubber’ lamps from Northern Europe

Shallow oval bowls used on the Baltic coast in the Mesolithic have been suggested as oil lamps, burning animal fat. Here researchers confirm the use of four coastal examples as lamps burning blubber—the fat of marine animals, while an inland example burned fat from terrestrial mammals or freshwater aquatics—perhaps eels. The authors use a combination of lipid biomarker and bulk and single-compound carbon isotope analysis to indicate the origin of the residues in these vessels.

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.

Phytoliths in Pottery Reveal the Use of Spice in European Prehistoric Cuisine

Here we present evidence of phytoliths preserved in carbonised food deposits on prehistoric pottery from the western Baltic dating from 6,100 cal BP to 5750 cal BP. Based on comparisons to over 120 European and Asian species, our observations are consistent with phytolith morphologies observed in modern garlic mustard seed (Alliaria petiolata (M. Bieb) Cavara & Grande). As this seed has a strong flavour, little nutritional value, and the phytoliths are found in pots along with terrestrial and marine animal residues, these findings are the first direct evidence for the spicing of food in European prehistoric cuisine. Our evidence suggests a much greater antiquity to the spicing of foods than is evident from the macrofossil record, and challenges the view that plants were exploited by hunter-gatherers and early agriculturalists solely for energy requirements, rather than taste.

Unstable relations: Indigenous people and environmentalism in contemporary Australia

might mean living pathological lives. They explain that in practical terms this may mean shifting debate from securing territories (states, food premises and bodies) towards building better healthcare systems, improving animal and environmental health, and stemming socioecological degradation, amongst other things. In summary, this is a thoroughly researched book with fascinating case studies and a strong agenda for the rethinking of disease governance. This will prove to be an excellent text for those studying disease and medical geographies, biopolitical scholars, more-than-human geographers with a bent towards the microbial, and those with an interest in food safety and food systems, amongst others. While those who aren’t familiar with biopolitical literature, Latourian concepts, more-than-human or multispecies approaches might find some sections dense, there is still considerable empirical analysis of several disease case studies that deftly links between the more conceptual literature and the examples, making this an engaging read for researchers at a range of different levels (undergraduate, doctoral student and academic). Geographically, the focus is often on the UK, although there are some examples and discussions of disease situations of closer relevance to Australasia, including SARS and H5N1.

A Himalayan triptych: narratives of traders, pilgrims and resistance in a landscape of movements

ABSTRACT For centuries, if not millennia, the north–south valley systems of Nepal’s Himalayas have acted as a capillary network for communication, exchange, veneration, discriminating cultural difference and measuring out (early-)state power. One valley, in particular, the Kali Gandaki in Mustang, is a palimpsest overlaid with complex socialized and politicized movement. Drawing on the work of those affiliated with post-phenomenological thinking and using a mix of archaeological, archival and ethnographic data, this article disentangles and narrates five travels that emanate from this linear trail: the pilgrim, the salt trader, the resistance fighter, the explorer and the trekker. We start with the Buddhist pilgrim visiting the 2000-year-old Muktinath temple complex, for whom the route is a spiritual path. With each new vista unfolds a landscape of miracles and magic, the dusty road itself a medium for acquisition in the mysterious economy of merit. We then turn to the caravan traders who have plied their wares between gusty mountain passes and lowland jungle, exchanging Tibetan salt for Indian grains in a tradition of centuries. For them the trail is an exercise in risk management: when to move to fix the best price, navigating precipitous tracks, calculating how many animals to sell or to keep. Later this trade route would become a frontier zone when, in 1950, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet. In the decades that followed, a Tibetan guerilla-fighting unit led by a former monk, Bapa Yeshe, mounted assaults from Mustang over the border into Tibet before ultimately being abandoned by their American Central Intelligence Agency supporters. Theirs was a receding trail, looking out over a dissolving field of cultural memories, their movement a heaving final resistance against a red tide of Mao’s intruders. Then there are the explorers – or nomadic cultural collectors – for whom the Annapurnas are a cornucopia of novelty. Each dusty step for them is further penetration into a landscape of alterity from which pieces of the other can be added to the collector’s satchel. Finally, we come to present-day trekkers, who dream of pristine nature and for whom the trail leads to escape, clarity of mind, the past or the edge of security. As they retrace the same routes and pathways to which of these historical narratives, if any, do they bear witness?

Heritage and communities of compassion in the aftermath of the great earthquake, Nepal: A photographic reflection

ABSTRACT This photo essay explores intimations of Nepal’s heritage – tangible, intangible and ‘living’ – with a focus on the earthquake-ravaged city of Kathmandu. Linking heritage with wider observations about social and cultural resilience, the photos and accompanying text draw attention to the complex processes of social dynamism and cultural resourcefulness unfolding in Nepal. Adopting an auto-ethnographic approach, supplemented with on-the-ground witness statements gathered from displaced friends, blogs and survivor accounts, we use this photographic reflection to document how small groups, individuals and local businesses in Kathmandu have offered aid in the aftermath of a natural disaster. In so doing, our aim is to provide a first step towards rethinking the notion of intangible heritage in Nepal, one that centres on assistance, compassion and care, and should not be subdued in favour of international guidance and policy in the reconstruction process.

‘To climb steep hills, requires slow pace at first: narratives of cultural resilience in the community of Langtang, in the Nepalese Himalayas

This photo essay explores the notion of cultural resiliency in the Nepali Himalayas, and carries a geographic focus that is centred on the village of Langtang. Our interest in capturing this area photographically emerges from several recent fieldwork excursions to Nepal and associated experiences of trekking through two distinct areas: the Langtang Valley and the Annapurna Conservation Area. During our visits to each area, we were struck by local efforts to secure a future in a rapidly changing environment. In the Annapurnas, an overarching story of encroaching development emerges, which has destabilised the fragile balance between conservation and development. In Langtang, by contrast, there is a more positive testimony of nearly half a century of cultural compromises necessary for ecological security (e.g., regulation of medicinal plant harvesting), entailing cultural adaptations into a more diverse range of vocational enterprises (like a community cheese-making factory, tourism and so forth). Our purpose in this essay is to engage with, and illustrate, some of the differences between the two.