Detection of dairy products from multiple taxa in Late Neolithic pottery from Poland: an integrated biomolecular approach

Abstract

The detection of dairy processing is pivotal to our understanding of ancient subsistence strategies. This culinary process is linked to key arguments surrounding the evolution of lactase persistence in prehistory. Despite extensive evidence indicating the presence of dairy products in ceramics in the European Neolithic, questions remain about the nature and extent of milk (and lactose) processing and consumption. In order to investigate past patterns of dairy processing, here we analyse ancient proteins identified from Late Neolithic Funnel Beaker ceramics, scrutinizing the principle that curd and whey proteins partition during the production of dairy foods from milk. Our results indicate the presence of casein-rich dairy products in these vessels suggesting the creation of curd-enriched products from raw milk. Moreover, this analysis reveals the use of multiple species for their dairy products in the Late Neolithic, adding to a growing body of evidence for the period. Alongside palaeoproteomic analysis, we applied well-established lipid residue analysis. Differential interpretations between these two approaches show that palaeoproteomics is especially useful where the effects from isotope mixing may underestimate the frequency of dairy products in archaeological ceramics, highlighting the potential utility of a multi-stranded approach to understand life histories of vessel use.

Pottery spilled the beans: Patterns in the processing and consumption of dietary lipids in Central Germany from the Early Neolithic to the Bronze Age

“…This coincided with the appearance of at least one dairy-specialised form and the development of the BAC and the corresponding demographic shift brought by the Funnel Beaker and Michelsberg cultures. Furthermore, these results are in line with contemporary 4 th millennium BCE data from Skogsmossen, Wangels, Oldenburg, Store/Lille Åmose, Sławęcinek, and Kopydłowo 6 in Poland, Denmark, and Sweden [ 20 , 93 , 97 , 98 , 115 ] ( Fig 11 ) amongst many sites [ 19 ], demonstrating a strong shift towards the use of dairy products in pottery-based culinary practices, constituting the strongest evidence for the first widespread adoption of dairying in northern Europe. The stronger reliance on dairy products by the BAC groups seems coherent with the development of new economic strategies managing animal herds to maximize milk production and of new sets of pottery types, such as cups with high carinations and handles, apparently developed to prepare and consume this product.…”

“…Meat consumption could have been substituted by dairy products, but this does not seem coherent with the slaughter profiles, optimised from meat production in sites contemporary with the high-dairy periods [ 106 ]. Alternatively, milk could have been consumed in the form of cream or butter, which would not affect collagen δ 15 N values as these products contain either significantly less protein or no protein at all [ 115 ].…”

The impact of cooking and burial on proteins: a characterisation of experimental foodcrusts and ceramics

“…For instance, Miller et al [44] demonstrate that absorbed lipids extracted from ceramics represent a long period of use, while surface deposits represent the most recent cooking events. However, as a much younger discipline, such studies are rarer in palaeoproteomics with most experimental studies focused on understanding if proteins survive at all in ceramics, or optimising extraction protocol [15,16,21,51,52] rather than the range of cooking and deposition variables which may impact them [although see 3,9].…”

“…Proteomics has become a valuable tool for identifying food in archaeological samples particularly from exceptionally well-preserved remains from frozen [1,2], desiccated [3][4][5] or waterlogged contexts [6,7], as well as calcified residues such as limescale on ceramics [8,9] and dental calculus [10][11][12][13]. Due to the tissue and taxonomically specific sequence information proteins can hold, proteomics is particularly useful for the detection of ingredients and cuisine.…”

Benchmarking the identification of a single degraded protein to explore optimal search strategies for ancient proteins

“…Here we tested the two opposite types of databases: a wide one from (Evans et al, 2023) that includes common and reviewed dairy proteins (DB1) and as a deep one, the Bovine proteome (DB2) (Table 2 and Figure 1b). Both include common contaminants usually reported in palaeoproteomics (Evans et al, 2023) and 4 different bovine BLG variants. DB1 comprises 227 protein entries, while DB2 contains 37,606 proteins.…”