Karine Taché

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.

Cooperative harvesting of aquatic resources and the beginning of pottery production in north-eastern North America

Abstract What benefits were derived from the invention of pottery, and why did ceramics remain marginal for so long? The increasing use of pottery has been seen as a response to large-scale harvesting in a model that favours economic advantage through increased efficiency. This paper challenges that view; combining carbon and nitrogen isotope and lipid analysis, the authors argue that pottery was used selectively for storing or processing valued exchange commodities such as fish oil. Its use can be seen as part of broader developments in hunter-gatherer society, featuring seasonal gatherings, collective feasting and a new articulation of social relations.

Chronometric Hygiene of Radiocarbon Databases for Early Durable Cooking Vessel Technologies in Northeastern North America

Abstract The earliest widespread pottery in northeastern North America is known as Vinette 1, a designation made by Ritchie and MacNeish (1949) over 60 years ago. While variation exists within this type (Taché 2005), external and internal cordmarked surfaces, thick walls, and large crushed-rock temper generally characterize this pottery. The history of this pottery, including its inception, geographical spread, temporal overlap with steatite vessels, and eventual replacement by other pottery technologies, is far from clear. In this article, we examine the existing database of radiocarbon assays associated with Vinette 1 pottery and steatite vessels, perform a chronometrie hygiene of those age estimates, and introduce 21 new AMS assays on charred cooking residues adhering to Vinette 1 sherd interiors. The results suggest a much more temporally restricted history for Vinette 1 pottery technology and a long period of coexistence with steatite vessels. However, the small number of reliable age estimates available for both technologies prevents a detailed assessment of their respective histories.

Specialized Processing of Aquatic Resources in Prehistoric Alaskan Pottery?: A Lipid-Residue Analysis of Ceramic Sherds from the Thule‐Period Site of Nunalleq, Alaska

Largely missing from the debate surrounding the use of pottery among arctic and subarctic hunter-gatherers are site-based biomolecular studies of vessel contents. This study used lipid-residue analysis to elucidate vessel function at Nunalleq (GDN-248), a late Thule-period coastal village site in the Yup’ik area of Western Alaska. In total, 31 pottery sherds and five soil samples were analyzed using gas chromatography and/or gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The ubiquitous presence of aquatic biomarkers in all the pottery sherds suggests that pottery function at the site was directly linked to the use of aquatic resources. This indication of relatively specialized use of pottery at Nunalleq is particularly interesting when considered within the context of the site’s broader subsistence strategies, which included use of both aquatic and terrestrial resources. These findings appear to support a more general association between higher-latitude pottery traditions and the use of aquatic resources, though this topic requires further research.

Taupita A 3000-year-old shell game in the Lapita cultural complex of Tonga

Recent excavations at the archaeological site of Nukuleka on Tongatapu in the Tongan Archipelago have yielded the largest Lapita collection of perforated Ark (Anadara) shells known to date. In this article, we focus on the unusually large collection of modified Ark shells from Nukuleka in an attempt to unravel the ambiguity that surrounds their functional interpretation. Former interpretations of perforated Anadara as shell net weights may only explain one possible cause of their construction. We proffer, through relational analogy, that we are witnessing a 3000-year-old Lapita shell game.Recent excavations at the archaeological site of Nukuleka on Tongatapu in the Tongan Archipelago have yielded the largest Lapita collection of perforated Ark (Anadara) shells known to date. In this...

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON MEADOWOOD TRADE ITEMS

In Early Woodland times, the creation of vast interaction spheres resulted in the widespread circulation of various objects and raw materials across northeastern North America. In this article, I discuss the contexts and spatial distribution of Meadowood trade items from over 240 archaeological sites. Traditionally viewed by William A. Ritchie as cult-related items, Meadowood artifacts have subsequently been interpreted as participating in a risk-buffering strategy. Alternatively, I present arguments supporting the role of Meadowood artifacts as part of a strategy used by a few individuals or corporate groups to increase their status through privilege access to rare and highly valued goods. Socially valued goods can be used in multiple ways and documenting this complexity is a prerequisite to understanding the mechanisms underlying the circulation of goods within the Meadowood Interaction Sphere, the structure of the network, and the incentives of the participating groups. This article stresses the need to move beyond the dichotomy between utilitarian/subsistence-related goods and non-utilitarian/ritual artifacts.

An archaeology of salt production in Fiji

The authors report the first exposure of prehistoric salt-working in the Pacific, one that used solar evaporation of sea water on large flanged clay dishes. This short-lived industry of the seventh century AD disappeared beneath the dunes, but its documented nineteenth- and twentieth-century successors offer it many useful analogies: the salt, now extracted by boiling brine, was supplied to inland communities upriver, where it functioned as a prime commodity for prestige and trade and an agent of social change.

Freshwater reservoir offsets and food crusts: Isotope, AMS, and lipid analyses of experimental cooking residues

Freshwater reservoir offsets (FROs) occur when AMS dates on charred, encrusted food residues on pottery predate a pot’s chronological context because of the presence of ancient carbon from aquatic resources such as fish. Research over the past two decades has demonstrated that FROs vary widely within and between water bodies and between fish in those water bodies. Lipid analyses have identified aquatic biomarkers that can be extracted from cooking residues as potential evidence for FROs. However, lacking has been efforts to determine empirically how much fish with FROs needs to be cooked in a pot with other resources to result in significant FRO on encrusted cooking residue and what percentage of fish C in a residue is needed to result in the recovery of aquatic biomarkers. Here we provide preliminary assessments of both issues. Our results indicate that in historically-contingent, high alkalinity environments <20% C from fish may result in a statistically significant FRO, but that biomarkers for aquatic resources may be present in the absence of a significant FRO.

Correction: Freshwater reservoir offsets and food crusts: Isotope, AMS, and lipid analyses of experimental cooking residues (PLoS ONE (2018) 13:4 (e0196407) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196407)

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196407.].