Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-12T14:10:42.973Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Investigating the function of prehistoric stone bowls and griddle stones in the Aleutian Islands by lipid residue analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2018

Marjolein Admiraal ,
Alexandre Lucquin ,
Matthew von Tersch ,
Peter D. Jordan  and
Oliver E. Craig
Marjolein Admiraal*
Affiliation:
Arctic Centre, University of Groningen, Aweg 30, 9718 CW Groningen, The Netherlands
Alexandre Lucquin
Affiliation:
BioArCh, University of York, Wentworth Way, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom
Matthew von Tersch
Affiliation:
BioArCh, University of York, Wentworth Way, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom
Peter D. Jordan
Affiliation:
Arctic Centre, University of Groningen, Aweg 30, 9718 CW Groningen, The Netherlands
Oliver E. Craig
Affiliation:
BioArCh, University of York, Wentworth Way, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author at: Arctic Centre, University of Groningen, Aweg 30, 9718 CW Groningen, The Netherlands. E-mail address: m.admiraal@rug.nl (M. Admiraal).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The earliest durable cooking technologies found in Alaska are stone bowls and griddle stones recovered from the Aleutian Islands. This article aims to identify the function of these artefacts. Molecular and chemical analyses of carbonised residues found on their surfaces confirm that these artefacts were used to process marine resources. Both artefacts have high lipid content and C:N ratios, suggesting they were used to process oily substances. Stable isotope results of individual lipids suggest that they were used to process different sets of resources within the aquatic spectrum as griddle stones have slightly more 13C-depleted lipids than stone bowls, possibly indicating more variable use. Integration of these results with archaeological and ethnographic data leads us to infer that griddle stones were used for cooking a diversity of aquatic resources, possibly with the addition of plant foods, whereas stone bowls were specifically used to render marine mammal fats. We further hypothesize that a sudden peak in stone bowl frequencies at 4000–3000 cal yr BP was connected to a Neoglacial cold spell bringing sea ice conditions to the Aleutian Islands. This may have led to new subsistence strategies in which the rendering of marine mammal fats played a central role.

Keywords

Durable container technologiesAleutian IslandsStone bowlsGriddle stonesOil renderingCookingLipid residue analysisCompound specific isotopesMaritime adaptationNeoglacial
Type
Aleutians Special Issue
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 91 , Issue 3 , May 2019 , pp. 1003 - 1015
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bell, J.G., Preston, T., Henderson, R.J., Strachan, F., Bron, J.E., Cooper, K., Morrison, D.J., 2007. Discrimination of wild and cultured European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) using chemical and isotopic analyses. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 55, 5934–5941.Google Scholar
Brown, T.A., Nelson, D.E., Vogel, J.S., Southon, J.R., 1988. Improved collagen extraction by modified Longin method. Radiocarbon 30, 171–177.Google Scholar
Choy, K., Potter, B.A., McKinney, H.J., Reuther, J.D., Wang, S.W., Wooller, M.J., 2016. Chemical profiling of ancient hearths reveals recurrent salmon use in Ice Age Beringia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113, 9757–9762.Google Scholar
Colonese, A.C., Farrell, T., Lucquin, A., Firth, D., Charlton, S., Robson, H.K., Alexander, M., Craig, O.E., 2015. Archaeological bone lipids as palaeodietary markers. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 29, 611–618.Google Scholar
Colonese, A.C., Lucquin, A., Guedes, E.P., Thomas, R., Best, J., Fothergill, B.T., Sykes, N., et al., 2017. The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramic vessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis. Journal of Archaeological Science 78, 179–192.Google Scholar
Corbett, D., Yarborough, M., 2016. The Aleutian tradition: the last 4,000 years. In: Friesen, M., Mason, O. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 607–630.Google Scholar
Craig, O.E., Allen, R.B., Thompson, A., Stevens, R.E., Steele, V.J., Heron, C., 2012. Distinguishing wild ruminant lipids by gas chromatography/combustion/isotope ratio mass spectrometry. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 26, 2359–2364.Google Scholar
Craig, O.E., Forster, M., Andersen, S.H., Koch, E., Crombé, P., Milner, N.J., Stern, B., Bailey, G.N., Heron, C.P., 2007. Molecular and isotopic demonstration of the processing of aquatic products in northern European prehistoric pottery. Archaeometry 49, 135–152.Google Scholar
Craig, O.E., Saul, H., Lucquin, A., Nishida, Y., Tache, K., Clarke, L., Thompson, A., et al., 2013. Earliest evidence for the use of pottery. Nature 496, 351–354.Google Scholar
Craig, O.E., Steele, V.J., Fischer, A., Hartz, S., Andersen, S.H., Donohoe, P., Glykou, A., et al., 2011. Ancient lipids reveal continuity in culinary practices across the transition to agriculture in northern Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108, 17910–17915.Google Scholar
Cramp, L., Evershed, R.P., 2014. Reconstructing aquatic resource exploitation in human prehistory using lipid biomarkers and stable isotopes. In: Holland, H.D., Turekian, K.K. (Eds.), Treatise on Geochemistry. Vol. 1, Archaeology and Anthropology, Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 319–339.Google Scholar
Cramp, L.J.E., Jones, J., Sheridan, A., Smyth, J., Whelton, H., Mulville, J., Sharples, N., Evershed, R.P., 2014. Immediate replacement of fishing with dairying by the earliest farmers of the Northeast Atlantic archipelagos. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281, 20132372.Google Scholar
Crockford, S.J., Frederick, S.G., 2007. Sea ice expansion in the Bering Sea during the Neoglacial: evidence from archaeozoology. Holocene 17, 699–706.Google Scholar
Davis, R., 2001. Sea mammal hunting and the Neoglacial: environmental change and subsistence technology at Margaret Bay. In: Dumond, D.E. (Ed.), Archaeology in the Aleut Zone of Alaska. University of Oregon, Eugene, pp. 71–86.Google Scholar
Davis, R., Knecht, R., Rogers, J., 2016. First maritime cultures of the Aleutians. In: Friesen, M., Mason, O. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 279–302.Google Scholar
Debono Spiteri, C., 2012. Pottery Use at the Transition to Agriculture in the Western Mediterranean: Evidence from Biomolecular and Isotopic Characterisation of Organic Residues in Impressed/Cardial Ware Vessels. PhD dissertation, University of York, York, United Kingdom.Google Scholar
Denniston, G.B., 1966. Cultural change at Chaluka, Umnak Island: stone artifacts and features. Arctic Anthropology 3, 84–124.Google Scholar
Dumond, D.E., 1977. The Eskimos and Aleuts. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Dumond, D.E., Bland, R.L., 1995. Holocene prehistory of the northernmost North Pacific. Journal of World Prehistory 9, 401–451.Google Scholar
Evershed, R.P., Copley, M.S., Dickson, L., Hansel, F.A., 2008. Experimental evidence for the processing of marine animal products and other commodities containing polyunsaturated fatty acids in pottery vessels. Archaeometry 50, 101–113.Google Scholar
Farrell, T.F.G., Jordan, P., Taché, K., Lucquin, A., Gibbs, K., Jorge, A., Britton, K., Craig, O.E., Knecht, R., 2014. Specialized processing of aquatic resources in prehistoric Alaskan pottery? A lipid-residue analysis of ceramic sherds from the Thule-period site of Nunalleq, Alaska. Arctic Anthropology 51, 86–100.Google Scholar
Fernandes, R., Grootes, P., Nadeau, M.-J., Nehlich, O., 2015. Quantitative diet reconstruction of a Neolithic population using a Bayesian mixing model (FRUITS): the case study of Ostorf (Germany). American Journal of Physical Anthropology 158, 325–340.Google Scholar
Frink, L., Giordano, C., 2015. Women and subsistence food technology: the Arctic seal poke storage system. Food and Foodways 23, 251–272.Google Scholar
Gibbs, K., Isaksson, S., Craig, O.E., Lucquin, A., Grishchenko, V.A., Farrell, T., Thompson, A., Kato, H., Vasilevski, A.A., Jordan, P.D., 2017. Exploring the emergence of an ‘Aquatic’ Neolithic in the Russian Far East: organic residue analysis of early hunter-gatherer pottery from Sakhalin Island. Antiquity 91, 1484–1500.Google Scholar
Hansel, F.A., Copley, M.S., Madureira, L.A.S., Evershed, R.P., 2004. Thermally produced ω-(o-alkylphenyl)alkanoic acids provide evidence for the processing of marine products in archaeological pottery vessels. Tetrahedron Letters 45, 2999–3002.Google Scholar
Hansel, F.A., Evershed, R.P., 2009. Formation of dihydroxy acids from Z-monounsaturated alkenoic acids and their use as biomarkers for the processing of marine commodities in archaeological pottery vessels. Tetrahedron Letters 50, 5562–5564.Google Scholar
Hatfield, V.L., 2010. Material Culture Across the Aleutian Archipelago. Human Biology 82, 525–556.Google Scholar
Heron, C., Andersen, S., Fischer, A., Glykou, A., Hartz, S., Saul, H., Steele, V., Craig, O., 2013. Illuminating the Late Mesolithic: residue analysis of “blubber” lamps from northern Europe. Antiquity 87, 178–188.Google Scholar
Heron, C., Craig, O.E., 2015. Aquatic resources in foodcrusts: identification and implication. Radiocarbon 57, 707–719.Google Scholar
Horiuchi, A., Miyata, Y., Kamijo, N., Cramp, L., Evershed, R.P., 2015. A dietary study of the Kamegaoka culture population during the final Jomon Period, Japan, using stable isotope and lipid analyses of ceramic residues. Radiocarbon 57, 721–736.Google Scholar
Jeanotte, R., Nicolaysen, K., Dowell, F.E., Johnson, T., West, D., 2012. Griddle stones from Adak Island, Alaska: their provenance and the biological origins of organic residues from cooking. In: West, D., Hatfield, V.L., Wilmerding, E.G., Lefèvre, C., Gualtieri, L. (Eds.), The People Before. The Geology, Paleoecology and Archaeology of Adak Island, Alaska. Archaeopress, Oxford, pp. 269–287.Google Scholar
Jochelson, W., 1925. Archaeological Investigations in the Aleutian Islands. Carnegie Institution, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Johnson, L.L., 2004. Prehistoric fishing technologies and species targeted in the Aleutian Islands: archaeological and ethnohistoric evidence. New Zealand Journal of Archaeology 24, 45–59.Google Scholar
Jordan, P., Zvelebil, M., 2009. Ceramics before Farming. The Dispersal of Pottery among Prehistoric Eurasian Hunter-Gatherers. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA.Google Scholar
Knecht, R., Davis, R.S., 2001. A prehistoric sequence for the Eastern Aleutians. In: Dumond, D.E. (Ed.), Archaeology in the Aleut Zone of Alaska. University of Oregon, Eugene, pp. 269–289.Google Scholar
Knecht, R., Davis, R.S., 2003. Archaeological Evaluation of Tanaxtaxak, the Amaknak Spit Site (UNL-00055) Final Report. The Museum of the Aleutians, Unalaska, AK.Google Scholar
Knecht, R., Davis, R.S., 2008. The Amaknak Bridge site: cultural change and the Neoglacial in the Eastern Aleutians. Arctic Anthropology 45, 61–78.Google Scholar
Knecht, R., Davis, R.S., Carver, G.A., 2001. The Margaret Bay site and eastern Aleutian prehistory. In: Dumond, D.E. (Ed.), Archaeology in the Aleut Zone of Alaska. University of Oregon, Eugene, pp. 35–71.Google Scholar
Lucquin, A., Colonese, A.C., Farrell, T.F.G., Craig, O.E., 2016a. Utilising phytanic acid diastereomers for the characterisation of archaeological lipid residues in pottery samples. Tetrahedron Letters 57, 703–707.Google Scholar
Lucquin, A., Gibbs, K., Uchiyama, J., Saul, H., Ajimoto, M., Eley, Y., Radini, A., et al., 2016b. Ancient lipids document continuity in the use of early hunter–gatherer pottery through 9,000 years of Japanese prehistory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 113, 3991–3996.Google Scholar
Magny, M., Haas, J.N., 2004. A major widespread climatic change around 5300 cal. yr BP at the time of the Alpine Iceman. Journal of Quaternary Science 19, 423–430.Google Scholar
Maschner, H., 2016. Archaeology of the eastern Aleut region. In: Friesen, M., Mason, O. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 323–348.Google Scholar
Mason, O.K., 2001. Catastrophic environmental change and the middle Holocene transition in the Aleutian Islands. In: Dumond, D.E. (Ed.), Archaeology in the Aleut Zone of Alaska. University of Oregon, Eugene, pp. 105–121.Google Scholar
McCartney, A.P., Veltre, D.W., 1996. Anangula Core and Blade site. In: West, F.H. (Ed.), American Beginnings: The Prehistory and Palaeoecology of Beringia. University of Chicago Press, London, pp. 443–450.Google Scholar
Oras, E., Higham, T.F.G., Cramp, L.J.E., Bull, I.D., 2017. Archaeological science and object biography: a Roman bronze lamp from Kavastu bog (Estonia). Antiquity 91, 124–138.Google Scholar
Outram, A.K., Stear, N.A., Bendrey, R., Olsen, S., Kasparov, A., Zaibert, V., Thorpe, N., Evershed, R.P., 2009. The earliest horse harnessing and milking. Science 323, 1332–1335.Google Scholar
Papakosta, V., Smittenberg, R.H., Gibbs, K., Jordan, P., Isaksson, S., 2015. Extraction and derivatization of absorbed lipid residues from very small and very old samples of ceramic potsherds for molecular analysis by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and single compound stable carbon isotope analysis by gas chromatography–combustion–isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC–C–IRMS). Microchemical Journal 123, 196–200.Google Scholar
Piezonka, H., Meadows, J., Hartz, S., Kostyleva, E., Nedomolkina, N., Ivanishcheva, M., Kosorukova, N., Terberger, T., 2016. Stone Age pottery chronology in the northeast European forest zone: new AMS and EA-IRMS results on foodcrusts. Radiocarbon 58, 267–289.Google Scholar
Quimby, G.I., 1945. Pottery from the Aleutian Islands. Fieldiana Anthropology 36, 1–13.Google Scholar
Sarychev, G., 1806. Account of a Voyage of Discovery to the North-East of Siberia, the Frozen Ocean and the North-East Sea. Vol. 1. J.G. Bernard, London.Google Scholar
Shoda, S., Lucquin, A., Ahn, J.-H., Hwang, C.-J., Craig, O.E., 2017. Pottery use by early Holocene hunter-gatherers of the Korean peninsula closely linked with the exploitation of marine resources. Quaternary Science Reviews 170, 164–173.Google Scholar
Taché, K., Craig, O.E., 2015. Cooperative harvesting of aquatic resources and the beginning of pottery production in north-eastern North America. Antiquity 89, 177–190.Google Scholar
Unger, S., 2014. Qaqamiigux: Traditional Foods and Recipes from the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands: Nourishing Our Mind, Body and Spirit for Generations. Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Anchorage, AK.Google Scholar
Van Bergen, P.F., Nott, C.J., Bull, I.D., Poulton, P.R., Evershed, R.P., 1998. Organic geochemical studies of soils from the Rothamsted Classical Experiments—IV. Preliminary results from a study of the effect of soil pH on organic matter decay. Organic Geochemistry 29, 1779–1795.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Admiraal et al. supplementary material

Table S1

Download Admiraal et al. supplementary material(File)
File 37.6 KB
Supplementary material: File

Admiraal et al. supplementary material

Table S2

Download Admiraal et al. supplementary material(File)
File 23.3 KB