Biomolecular and micromorphological analysis of suspected faecal deposits at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Abstract

a b s t r a c tSuspected coprolites from midden, burial and room fill contexts at Çatalhöyük were analysed by GC/MS and thin section micromorphology. Assessment of sterol biomarkers enabled a distinction between faecal and non-faecal sources for the deposits to be made, with bile acid biomarkers indicating that many of the faecal deposits are human coprolites. The relative lack of ruminant faeces could be due to this material being used as a fuel source. Deposits in burials were observed to contain soil and plant derived sterols rather than their faecal counterparts. Further analysis in thin section enabled identification of associated materials and contents. Diagnostic inclusions such as bone and plant fragments were only present in some of the human coprolites, which were observed to have a very similar morphology to decayed plant remains. This study illustrates the difficulties in distinguishing coprolites in the field and under the microscope, and demonstrates the importance of integrating biogeochemical methods, particularly when such deposits are used as the basis for interpreting human health and diet, and use-of-space in settlements.

Preliminary ethnoarchaeological research on modern animal husbandry in Bestansur, Iraqi Kurdistan: Integrating animal, plant and environmental data

“…Adult sheep/goats produce more spherulites in comparison to cows; however, clear outliers have been recognised in the form of low faecal spherulite production in immature sheep. The archaeological interpretation of animal dung to species should therefore be cautiously used without further clarifying evidence, for example species specific GC MS (see Bull et al 1999;Shillito et al 2011a). This variation between species observed in this preliminary dataset reinforces existing work on spherulite production (Canti 1999) but also provides a region-specific dataset comparable within the environment of our archaeological study area (Figs.…”

Evolution of pastoralism in Southern Greenland during the last two millennia reconstructed from bile acids and coprophilous fungal spores in lacustrine sediments

“…They have also been st udied in ant hr opogenic and past ur e soils (Zocat elli et al, 2012). Bile acids ar e spar sely r epor t ed, however , in ancient envir onment al samples and wer e det ect ed in ar chaeological cont ext s such as ant hr opogenic manur e palaeosoils (Bull et al, 1999) and Neolit hic copr olit es (Shillit o et al, 2011). Our r esult s const it ut e t he fir st evidence of t he long t er m per sist ence of DOC in lake sediment s. The pr esence of DOC in 1700 yr old samples implies t hat it did not suffer int ensive degr adat ion or leaching and could be mor e ext ensively examined in sediment ar y ar chives.…”

Anglo-Saxon Economy and Ecology by a Downland Stream: A Waterlogged Sequence from the Anglo-Saxon Royal Settlement at Lyminge, Kent

“…Coprolite fragments in the upper unit, comparable to those produced by omnivores (i.e. human or pig) (Shillito et al 2011), demonstrate dung deposited or dumped at the stream edge (Figure 7 (b)) which also correlate to parasite eggs in associated samples (section 'Parasite eggs').…”