Dietary practices at the castle of Middelburg, Belgium: organic residue analysis of 16th- to 17th-century ceramics (original) (raw)
Related papers
STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research, 2016
Organic residue analysis was carried out on kitchen wares from a Medieval household at Paphos (Cyprus) in the framework of the POMEDOR Project, which aims to gain insight into food practices in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Medieval period. The samples were selected from a household assemblage which included nearly two hundred table, cooking and storage vessels, and provided a rare insight into everyday life in Frankish-period Paphos. Both glazed and unglazed vessels were chosen for this first step towards the study of foodways at the site: 4 glazed vessels (3 pans/ baking dishes and 1 cooking pot) and 7 unglazed vessels (3 cooking pots, 1 jug and 3 pans/baking dishes). Samples were analysed using gas chromatographymass spectrometry, following different extraction methods to identify the residues preserved. The preliminary study confirmed that glazed ceramics absorb residues. Animal products were identified in the unglazed pots and in glazed pans/baking dishes. Only one unglazed pan shows residues of possible wine or its derivatives, that may have been used to flavor the foodstuff cooked. Statement of significance Ceramic vessels can be studied in order to recover information about their original content through specific chemical analyses. This study is part of the first step of a broader project, which aims to gain insights into food practices in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Medieval period. The project incorporates historical, archaeological and archaeometric research. The study provides information on the use of a range of vessels, such as pots, pans/baking dishes, and jugs, as well as on the food cooked in them. An important aspect of this study is that it confirms that glazed ceramics absorb and preserve organic residues, yielding information about the original content of the vessels.
Paleoproteomic profiling of organic residues on prehistoric pottery from Malta
Amino Acids, 2021
Mass spectrometry-based approaches have been successfully applied for identifying ancient proteins in bones and other tissues. On the contrary, there are relatively few examples of the successful recovery and identification of archeological protein residues from ceramic artifacts; this is because ceramics contain much lower levels of proteins which are extensively degraded by diagenetic effects. In this paper, we report the results of the characterization of proteins extracted from pottery of the Maltese site of Baħrija, the guide-site for the Baħrija period (half of 9th-second half of eighth century BCE), recently identified as the final part of the Borġ in-Nadur culture. Proteomic data here reported confirm that one of the major issue of these kind of studies is represented by contamination of animal and human agents that may complicate endogenous protein identification and authentication. The samples tested included a small group of ceramic forms, namely three tableware and six coarse ware thought to have been used in food preparation and/or storage. In this context, the limited availability of paleobotanical and archeozoological analyses may be compensated by the outcomes of the first proteomics profiling which, even if obtained on a limited selection of vessels, revealed the centrality of wheat in the diet of the ancient community of Baħrija. The data have been deposited to the ProteomeXchange with identifier < PXD022848 > .
Organic residue analysis of experimental, medieval, and post-medieval glazed ceramics
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2015
Glazed ceramics have not typically been sampled for organic residue analysis because the glaze is not porous; therefore, it is commonly believed that these ceramics cannot absorb substances. Although this is partially true, the aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the glaze may exhibit imperfections due to the production process or the use of ceramics and that these imperfections allow the ceramic matrix to trap residues of the food contained in the vessels. The absorption of organic residues in glazed ceramics is demonstrated by analyses of modern vessels experimentally enriched with wine and vegetable oils (olive and lentisk oils) and archaeological vessels obtained from post-medieval Florence (Italy) and medieval Pla d'Almatà (Balaguer, Lleida, Spain). The analyses were conducted using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry following different extraction protocols aimed at identifying lipids and wine residues preserved in the ceramic vessels. Images of the glazed ceramic coating were recorded using an optical microscope and a scanning electron microscope to verify the presence of imperfections. In addition to providing information about the use of the studied vessels, the obtained results demonstrate how glazed ceramics can be studied to recover information regarding ceramic use and dietary practices in medieval and post-medieval periods when glazed wares were very common.
Journal of Mass Spectrometry, 2001
Mass spectrometry for cultural heritage knowledge: gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric analysis of organic remains in Neolithic potsherds † The application of scientific methods to study materials and handicrafts of archaeological interest contributes to solve successfully various problems of identification, dating, utilization of objects and shreds found by the archaeologist. 1 In this way, it is possible to obtain interesting information on the everyday life of ancient peoples. Mass spectrometry is a powerful tool for research in this field, thanks to its high analytical sensitivity and specificity; many of its applications are in the study of organic materials such as bones, food remains, seeds, resins, waxes, natural dyes, etc. 2-4 In order to achieve new knowledge on trade, storage, cooking, processing of foods and diet of Neolithic peoples, we carried out a study by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) on some pottery sherds found during an archaeological excavation at S. Marco hill, near Paternò, a country town in the Etna volcano area, Eastern Sicily. Lipids absorbed into the porous structure of the potsherds are generally well preserved. Compositional alteration through microbial activity is small and therefore the lipids are often a direct reflection of the original contents and usage of ceramic vessels (vases, pans, bowls, etc.). 5,6 The identification of the lipid profile can provide important information for the classification of artefact use. In this kind of research, attention must be paid to contamination arising from migration of soil components. 7 Our program consisted in studying the composition of the fatty acid fraction extracted from eight sherds buried in a late Neolithic settlement; four are fragments (a few square centimeters) of pans or bowls (samples 1-4) and the other four are fragments of strainerlike objects, showing many holes (samples 5-8). These holes are of different sizes in the four fragments (2-6 mm). Two solvents, light petroleum and dichloromethane were used to extract intact potsherds in an ultrasonic bath for 30 min at room temperature and then for 6 h under reflux in a specially designed all-glass device. The combined extracts were hydrolyzed in an alkaline 0.5 M solution of sodium hydroxide in water-methanol (1 : 1) for 90 min.
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2020
This paper focuses on the functional analysis of Swifterbant pottery from Northwestern Europe (ca. 4300-4000 BC) through lipid residue analysis. The main aim is to understand the role of pottery in terms of its relation to hunter-fisher-gatherer lifestyle, and the change in available food resources brought about by the arrival of domesticated animal and plant products. We conducted lipid residue analysis of 62 samples from three Swifterbant sites S2, S3 and S4. A combined approach using both GC-MS and GC-C-IRMS of residues absorbed into the ceramic was employed to identify their context. Our results demonstrate that Swifterbant ceramics were used exclusively for processing aquatic resources. We also found no evidence of inter-site variation in the use of pottery or variation based on both typological and technological features of the pottery. We found no evidence for any domesticated resources despite their presence in the faunal and botanical assemblages.
2018
In this study, a soil from two ceramic vessels belonging to Corded Ware culture, 2707–2571 B.C., found in a cremation grave discovered in Central Moravia, Czech Republic, was analyzed using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization–mass spectrometry (MALDI–MS) combined with advanced statistical treatment (principal component analysis, PCA, and orthogonal projection to latent structures discriminant analysis, OPLS-DA) and by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). MALDI–MS revealed the presence of triacylglycerols in both vessels. This analytical technique was used for the analysis of the soil content from archaeological ceramic vessels for the first time. Targeted ELISA experiments consequently proved the presence of milk proteins in both ceramic vessels. These results represent the first direct evidence of the use of milk or dairy products in the Eneolithic period in Moravian Corded Ware Culture and help to better understand the diet habits and living conditions of Eneolithic populations in Central Europe.
Environmental Archaeology, 2024
Despite the extended application of GC-MS for detecting organic residues from archaeological ceramics, the potential of gas chromatography-high-resolution and accuracy mass spectrometry (GC-HRAMS) has not yet been fully explored. This study conducted lipid residue analysis (using an Exactive Orbitrap GC-MS system) of dolia and jars from two Early and Middle Bronze Age (2200-1450 BC) archaeological sites in southeastern Sicily, comparing chromatograms obtained by both GC-HRAMS and GC coupled to quadrupole, low-resolution MS (GC-LRMS). The archaeological question aimed at verifying the use of the selected vessels for cooking purposes and exploring hypotheses concerning their employment in different cooking methods (boiling or roasting) based on the analysis of morphological features and burning traces on the surfaces. The results showed clear advantages of using GC-HRAMS in targeted and untargeted approaches.
The organic residues in the material of a series of pottery vessels from a votive deposit (3rd − 2nd century BCE) in the excavations of the Etruscan city of Tarquinia (Italy) were analyzed by gas chromatographymass spectrometry (GC-MS). Long-chain (31, 33 and 35 carbon atoms) ketones were initially detected in the lipid extracts of all the ceramic samples examined, irrespectively of the characteristics of the vessels in terms of shape and texture and of the possibility they had been used for cooking, recognized in several studies as the main cause of the formation of these compounds. Considering that some cases have also been reported in the literature in which the presence of these ketones seemed unexpected for a given ceramic container, it was decided to examine the possible correlation of their occurrence, for the set of vessels examined in the present work, with the sampling mode used to obtain the ceramic powder before extraction with solvents for the recovery of the organic residue. It was thus possible to demonstrate that the use of a drill for sampling, a modality not unusual in this kind of study, can give rise to the formation of these compounds in an archaeological ceramic material in which fatty acids are absorbed, particularly if it contains calcium carbonate, as demonstrated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of the examined pottery fragments. A laboratory experiment based on a fragment of modern pottery in which palmitic and stearic acids were absorbed from a solution, and from which powder samples were then obtained both by drilling and by manual scraping of the pottery surface, allowed to validate the hypothesis above. It was therefore possible to highlight the importance of careful consideration also of the sampling phase in interpreting the results of the analysis of organic residues in archaeological pottery.