The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis

Poultry products are rarely considered when reconstructing pottery use through organic residue analysis, impinging upon our understanding of the changing role of these animals in the past. Here we evaluate an isotopic approach for distinguishing chicken fats from other animal products. We compare th...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Colonese, A.C., Lucquin, A., Guedes, E.P., Thomas, R., Best, J., Fothergill, B.T., Sykes, Naomi, Foster, A., Miller, Holly, Poole, K., Maltby, M., Von Tersch, M., Craig, O.E.
Format: Article
Published: Elsevier 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53106/
_version_ 1848798878938169344
author Colonese, A.C.
Lucquin, A.
Guedes, E.P.
Thomas, R.
Best, J.
Fothergill, B.T.
Sykes, Naomi
Foster, A.
Miller, Holly
Poole, K.
Maltby, M.
Von Tersch, M.
Craig, O.E.
author_facet Colonese, A.C.
Lucquin, A.
Guedes, E.P.
Thomas, R.
Best, J.
Fothergill, B.T.
Sykes, Naomi
Foster, A.
Miller, Holly
Poole, K.
Maltby, M.
Von Tersch, M.
Craig, O.E.
author_sort Colonese, A.C.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Poultry products are rarely considered when reconstructing pottery use through organic residue analysis, impinging upon our understanding of the changing role of these animals in the past. Here we evaluate an isotopic approach for distinguishing chicken fats from other animal products. We compare the carbon isotopes of fatty acids extracted from modern tissues and archaeological bones and demonstrate that archaeological bones from contexts associated with pottery provide suitable reference ranges for distinguishing omnivorous animal products (e.g. pigs vs. chickens) in pots. When applied to pottery from the Anglo-Saxon site of Flixborough, England, we succeeded in identifying residues derived from chicken fats that otherwise could not be distinguished from other monogastric and ruminant animals using modern reference values only. This provides the first direct evidence for the processing of poultry or their products in pottery. The results highlight the utility of ‘in-situ’ archaeological bone lipids to identify omnivorous animal-derived lipids in archaeological ceramic vessels.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:26:46Z
format Article
id nottingham-53106
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:26:46Z
publishDate 2017
publisher Elsevier
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-531062020-05-04T18:33:04Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53106/ The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis Colonese, A.C. Lucquin, A. Guedes, E.P. Thomas, R. Best, J. Fothergill, B.T. Sykes, Naomi Foster, A. Miller, Holly Poole, K. Maltby, M. Von Tersch, M. Craig, O.E. Poultry products are rarely considered when reconstructing pottery use through organic residue analysis, impinging upon our understanding of the changing role of these animals in the past. Here we evaluate an isotopic approach for distinguishing chicken fats from other animal products. We compare the carbon isotopes of fatty acids extracted from modern tissues and archaeological bones and demonstrate that archaeological bones from contexts associated with pottery provide suitable reference ranges for distinguishing omnivorous animal products (e.g. pigs vs. chickens) in pots. When applied to pottery from the Anglo-Saxon site of Flixborough, England, we succeeded in identifying residues derived from chicken fats that otherwise could not be distinguished from other monogastric and ruminant animals using modern reference values only. This provides the first direct evidence for the processing of poultry or their products in pottery. The results highlight the utility of ‘in-situ’ archaeological bone lipids to identify omnivorous animal-derived lipids in archaeological ceramic vessels. Elsevier 2017-02-28 Article PeerReviewed Colonese, A.C., Lucquin, A., Guedes, E.P., Thomas, R., Best, J., Fothergill, B.T., Sykes, Naomi, Foster, A., Miller, Holly, Poole, K., Maltby, M., Von Tersch, M. and Craig, O.E. (2017) The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis. Journal of Archaeological Science, 78 . pp. 179-192. ISSN 1095-9238 Poultry; Lipid; Stable isotopes; Organic residue analysis; Anglo-Saxon pottery; GC-MS; GC-c-IRMS https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440316301820?via%3Dihub doi:10.1016/j.jas.2016.12.006 doi:10.1016/j.jas.2016.12.006
spellingShingle Poultry; Lipid; Stable isotopes; Organic residue analysis; Anglo-Saxon pottery; GC-MS; GC-c-IRMS
Colonese, A.C.
Lucquin, A.
Guedes, E.P.
Thomas, R.
Best, J.
Fothergill, B.T.
Sykes, Naomi
Foster, A.
Miller, Holly
Poole, K.
Maltby, M.
Von Tersch, M.
Craig, O.E.
The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis
title The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis
title_full The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis
title_fullStr The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis
title_full_unstemmed The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis
title_short The identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis
title_sort identification of poultry processing in archaeological ceramicvessels using in-situ isotope references for organic residue analysis
topic Poultry; Lipid; Stable isotopes; Organic residue analysis; Anglo-Saxon pottery; GC-MS; GC-c-IRMS
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53106/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53106/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/53106/