Fit for purpose? Organic residue analysis and vessel specialisation: The perfectly utilitarian medieval pottery assemblage from West Cotton, Raunds

Lipid residues in pottery from the Indus Civilisation in northwest India

“…Ceramic lipid residue analysis provides a powerful means by which the foodways of populations can be examined and has been used in a range of archaeological contexts around the world to extract and identify foodstuff within ancient vessels ( Evershed, 2008 ; Regert, 2011 ; Roffet-Salque et al, 2017 ). Organic residue analysis can also provide a new understanding of vessel specialisation and use ( Roffet-Salque et al, 2017 ; Dunne et al, 2020 ). Ceramics are one of the most ubiquitous artefacts recovered during archaeological excavations of proto- and historic South Asian sites.…”

Lipid residue analysis of ceramic vessels from the Liujiawa site of the Rui State (early Iron Age, north China)

“…The variations in lipid concentration may be associated with preservation issues from specific pot fabrications and the burial microenvironment (Correa-Ascencio and . Nevertheless, the pottery type and parts from where the sherds emanated may also have great influence on the lipid concentrations (Charters et al 1997, Dunne et al 2020. For instance, the cooking utensil tripod Li, was generally observed to have a higher lipid concentration than other pot types in this study.…”

“…The development of analytical methods to extract information from these sherds has revolutionised the means of interpretation and yielded remarkably enriched insights into ancient culinary practices since the Neolithic Age (Copley et al 2003;Hendy et al 2018;Courel et al 2020). Pottery residue analysis has been extensively used to explore ancient dietary features, vessel usage, resource exploitation, and economic activities in Europe (Copley et al 2005;Salque et al 2013;Dunne et al 2020;Drieu et al 2021), and gradually applied in other regions (Nieuwenhuyse et al 2015;Dunne et al 2017;Shoda et al 2017;Lucquin et al 2018;Dunne et al 2021). Nevertheless, archaeological studies of ancient China have not yet incorporated pottery lipid analysis into archaeological studies (Yang, 2021), except in a few pioneer cases (Lanehart 2015;Shoda et al 2018;Rao et al 2019;Taché et al 2021).…”

Lipids in Archaeological Pottery: A Review on Their Sampling and Extraction Techniques

“…FFAs are the principal constituents of hydrolyzed fats and oils, the most encountered and investigated lipid types associated with archaeological pottery [ 36 ]. Despite many FFAs being identified in archaeological ceramic sherds [ 37 , 38 ], only some of them were detected in significant amounts, especially if the ceramic containers have been treated at high temperatures for cooking purposes or they have been subjected to burial, being exposed to chemical reactions (oxidation, hydrolysis, condensation) [ 1 , 39 ]. FFAs consist, in most cases, of an unbranched hydrocarbon chain, mainly containing an even number of carbon atoms, commonly from 12 to 24, and a terminal carboxyl group.…”

“…The extraction and analysis of such organic residues from pottery can provide answers to a variety of archaeological questions about diet, food storage and processing, rituals and medical practices, trade and the use of commodities, domestication of animals, etc., thus contributing to unveiling crucial hints about daily life of the ancient societies. In fact, it is well known that ceramics were used, not only for decorative purposes, but, significantly, for a wide variety of functions [ 1 , 2 ]. Broadly speaking, culinary pottery can be distinguished according to its use, i.e., storage containers, processing vessels (employed for grinding, crushing, mixing, marinating, boiling, roasting etc.)…”