Dung in the dumps: what we can learn from multi-proxy studies of archaeological dung pellets

Abstract

A key question in archaeobotany concerns the role of herbivore dung in contributing plant remains to archaeobotanical assemblages. This issue has been discussed for at least 40 years and has motivated several archaeobotanical studies on identifying dung-derived deposition of plant remains. Meanwhile, microarchaeological methods have developed and continue to be developed for detecting dung in archaeological sediments, and multi-proxy methodologies are being used to study the botanical components of dung-associated sediments. Combining these approaches, the authors recently led a study incorporating different botanical proxies (seeds, pollen, phytoliths) with geoarchaeological sedimentary analysis to compare dung pellets and associated sediments. This approach presents a new way to gauge the contribution of dung-derived plant remains in archaeobotanical assemblages, which is further explored in this follow-up paper. The present paper further highlights how multi-proxy archaeobotanical investigation of individual dung pellets can provide information on seasonality, grazing range and herding practices. Their short production and deposition time make herbivore dung pellets time capsules of agropastoral activity, a useful spatio-temporal unit of analysis, and even a type of archaeological context in their own right. Adding different biomolecular and chemical methods to future multi-proxy archaeobotanical investigation of herbivore dung will produce invaluable high-resolution reconstructions of dung microbiomes. Ultimately, unpacking the contents of ancient dung pellets will inform on the species, physical characteristics, diet, niche, and disease agents of the ancient pellets’ producers. Expanded datasets of such dung-derived information will contribute significantly to the study of ecosystem transformation as well as the long-term development of agriculture and pastoralism.

Epipalaeolithic animal tending to Neolithic herding at Abu Hureyra, Syria (12,800–7,800 calBP): Deciphering dung spherulites

“…It is currently unclear which animal deposited the dung. Some scholars have used macro-botanical or phytolith data to explore animal diet, potentially providing an additional avenue to explore species, but this approach rests firmly on the assumption that plant remains recovered were deposited solely via dung-depositional pathways [ 61 ]. A detailed consideration of plant data from Abu Hureyra lies beyond the scope of this paper, but it is clear that the archaeobotanical assemblages represent variable mixtures of human-consumption and wood- and dung-based fuel pathways, and that the relative contribution of each pathway varied between samples and time periods, rendering it difficult to cleanly isolate animal diet from plant data without additional study [ 61 , 89 ].…”

“…Some scholars have used macrobotanical or phytolith data to explore animal diet, potentially providing an additional avenue to explore species, but this approach rests firmly on the assumption that plant remains recovered were deposited solely via dung-depositional pathways [61]. A detailed consideration of plant data from Abu Hureyra lies beyond the scope of this paper, but it is clear that the archaeobotanical assemblages represent variable mixtures of human-consumption and wood-and dung-based fuel pathways, and that the relative contribution of each pathway varied between samples and time periods, rendering it difficult to cleanly isolate animal diet from plant data without additional study [61,89]. Furthermore, even if purely dung-derived deposits are secured, modern studies of goitered gazelle and mouflon diet, together with historical knowledge of extinct aurochsen, indicate substantial overlap in the range of grasses grazed, and opportunistic browsing of forbs, leaves, bark, and twigs as conditions permit or seasons require [90][91][92][93].…”

“…Since their debate, which occurred in the late 1990s, diverging schools of thought on primary pathways of plant deposition across Southwest Asia have persisted, shaping questions asked of both macro-botanical and phytolith remains and influencing subsequent interpretations of the data generated [ 48 , 60 ]. Given the universal need for food and fuel, it is reasonable to expect that both food- and fuel-related activities would have contributed to sediments in varying degrees across space and time, resulting in a range of food-derived, fuel-derived, and mixed assemblages representing a range of activities [ 30 , 61 ]. It remains unclear, however, when the use of dung as a fuel began.…”

Minimally Destructive Radiocarbon Dating of Caprine Dung

“…A variety of techniques are employed in coprolite analysis (e.g., Miller 1984; Poinar et al 1998; Kühn et al 2013; Linseele 2013; Camacho et al 2018; Égüez and Makarewicz 2018; Sistiaga et al 2014; Perrotti and van Asperen 2019; Zhang et al 2019; Wood et al 2020), and many studies apply multiple techniques to different coprolites in an assemblage (Reinhard and Bryant 1992; di Lernia 2001; Delhon et al 2008; Shahack-Gross 2011; Marinova et al 2013; Pineda et al 2017; Baeten et al 2018; Landau et al 2020). Yet the full benefits of the multi-proxy approach will be realized when different complementary analyses are applied to each individual coprolite investigated, making the most of this finite archaeological resource (Fuks and Dunseth 2021). Meanwhile, multi-proxy approaches to analyzing individual coprolites are being employed and refined (Dunseth et al 2019; Jouy-Avantin et al 2003; Rifkin et al 2020; Romaniuk et al 2020; Polling et al 2021; Velázquez et al 2021).…”

Disentangling Human–Plant–Animal Dynamics at the Microscale: Geo-Ethnoarchaeological Case Studies from North Africa and the Near East

“…However, all these techniques can be unreliable when identifying faecal materials preserved in archaeological contexts, especially when used singularly. An integrated analytical approach is best to characterise ancient faecal matter; the effective linking of palaeoenvironmental, geoarchaeological, biomolecular and ethnographic datasets continues to prove challenging, in spite of the emergence of highresolution analytical methods and recent developments in a range of areas as highlighted in recent reviews [25][26][27][28][29].…”