Recent Advances in Archaeological Science Techniques Special Feature: Dating the emergence of dairying by the first farmers of Central Europe using 14C analysis of fatty acids preserved in pottery vessels

Direct, accurate, and precise dating of archaeological pottery vessels is now achievable using a recently developed approach based on the radiocarbon dating of purified molecular components of food residues preserved in the walls of pottery vessels. The method targets fatty acids from animal fat residues, making it uniquely suited for directly dating the inception of new food commodities in prehistoric populations. Here, we report a large-scale application of the method by directly dating the introduction of dairying into Central Europe by the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) cultural group based on dairy fat residues. The radiocarbon dates (n = 27) from the 54th century BC from the western and eastern expansion of the LBK suggest dairy exploitation arrived with the first settlers in the respective regions and were not gradually adopted later. This is particularly significant, as contemporaneous LBK sites showed an uneven distribution of dairy exploitation. Significantly, our findings demonstrate the power of directly dating the introduction of new food commodities, hence removing taphonomic uncertainties when assessing this indirectly based on associated cultural materials or other remains.

The introduction of new food commodities into the human diet at the very beginnings of plant and animal domestication is one of the most critical questions in the Neolithization process, having far reaching consequences for human evolution and environmental change. Of major importance is milk exploitation, as it relates to animal domestication but also the ability of adult humans to digest lactose (1, 2). Clearly, identifying the beginnings of the exploitation of domesticated animals for their secondary products (i.e., those obtained during the life of animals, such as milk, wool, or blood) as opposed to primary products (i.e., those obtained by the death of the animal such as meat, skin, teeth, or horn) makes it extremely important to establish when and how dairying began (3, 4). Directly dating the introduction of a new food commodity is nonetheless challenging.Evidence for dairy exploitation in prehistory can be interpreted from iconography, diagnostic ceramics, or domesticated animal slaughter patterns based on sex and ages (3, 4). Additionally, direct evidence for dairy exploitation can be derived from lipid analyses of food residues preserved in pottery vessels. By determining the stable carbon isotope values of the two fatty acids (FAs) (C_16:0 and C_18:0) characteristic of degraded animal fats, dairy products can be distinguished from carcass products (5). Recent combined lipid residue analyses of pottery vessels and animal management assessments based on faunal remains (stable isotopes, butchery practices, kill-off patterns, and calving patterns) have provided invaluable knowledge of early dairying practices at archaeological sites. Currently, the earliest evidence for milk use from lipid residues and faunal assemblages recovered during the Neolithic was found in Anatolia during the 7th millennium BC (6), from several regions in the Balkans, eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean during the 6th millennium BC (7–12), in Saharan Africa (Libya and Algeria) during the 5th millennium BC (13–15), from the beginning of the Neolithic in Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia during the 4th millennium BC (5, 16–19), and in the Baltic countries during the 3rd millennium BC (16). The dates of the introduction of dairying in these regions have been established largely indirectly based on associated materials (e.g., animal bone collagen, charcoal, charred seeds, etc.) recovered from the same archaeological contexts as the pottery yielding milk fat residues. However, uncertainties exist with indirect dating due to possible intrusion or residuality of datable materials, resulting from the disturbance of archaeological layers and the requirement for the datable materials to be short-lived and truly contemporaneous in date with the pottery vessels containing the dairy residues.Thus, the application of recently developed methods for the direct dating of lipids from pottery food residues offers a unique approach to obtain accurate and precise dates for the introduction of new food commodities. The direct ¹⁴C dating of dairy fat residues avoids all the aforementioned uncertainties, offering an unprecedented opportunity to accurately date the start of dairying practices. At the University of Bristol, United Kingdom, we recently reported a method for radiocarbon dating pottery vessels from their absorbed food residues. Our compound-specific radiocarbon analysis (CSRA) approach is based on the isolation of the C_16:0 and C_18:0 FAs from the clay matrix and freeing them from exogenous organic contaminants (20, 21). We have successfully applied this approach to a small number of dairy residues from the Libyan Sahara and Central Europe, with one of the oldest dated dairy residues coming from the 6th millennium in the Balkans (11, 22). Hence, this dating method offers the opportunity to directly date residues identified as dairy fats based on the compound-specific δ¹³C values of the C_16:0 and C_18:0 FAs, avoiding taphonomic uncertainties arising from dating-associated materials.In this paper, we focus on the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture, the first farming society in Central Europe, which emerged and expanded over much of northern Europe in the middle of the 6th millennium BC (23). This culture has been divided into five main phases: Earliest (I), Early (II), Middle (III), Late (IV), and Final (V) LBK, known as the Meier-Arendt chronology, whose timing and evolution differed in the different regions of the LBK (24). Hence, the ceramic phases discussed in the remainder of this paper use the regional and site classifications for the chronology of earliest, early, middle, and Late LBK, which are not necessarily contemporaneous. For example, phase I in Poland and phase I in Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes refer to the Earliest and Late LBK phases, respectively, in the Meier-Arendt chronology.Dairy residues were identified in varying quantities at LBK sites across Central Europe. Some sites show only a weak dairy signal (1 to 2 potsherds only), while others display much higher recovery, with over 20% of the residues displaying dairy fat molecular and carbon isotope characteristics. These results emphasize the spatial disparity in the exploitation of cattle and caprines for their milk in this period. We do not exclude the possibility that the use of organic containers other than clay vessels for dairy products at some sites may affect the overall dairy lipid recovery observed. Diachronic studies in certain regions also revealed dairy practices evolving from being nonexistent or at very low levels at LBK sites but becoming much more abundant in the following Middle Neolithic cultures [e.g., the Rössen culture in Lower Alsace, France (22) or Funnel Beaker culture at the site of Kopydłowo, Poland (25)]. Dating of dairy residues recovered from the earliest phases of the sites would provide calendar ages for the emergence of dairying between LBK regions based directly on the commodity itself rather than on associated materials. Critically, some sites cannot be dated by conventional materials due to their poor preservation, while at other sites where dairy evidence is scarce, the possibility exists for false-positive signal arising due to stratigraphic perturbations. In reporting here the application of our recently developed CSRA method to a wide range of potsherds, we begin to resolve the timing of appearance of dairying practices by LBK farmers during the Neolithic in the diverse regions of the settlements.