Ancient lipids document continuity in the use of early hunter-gatherer pottery through 9,000 years of Japanese prehistory

Abstract

The earliest pots in the world are from East Asia and date to the Late Pleistocene. However, ceramic vessels were only produced in large numbers during the warmer and more stable climatic conditions of the Holocene. It has long been assumed that the expansion of pottery was linked with increased sedentism and exploitation of new resources that became available with the ameliorated climate, but this hypothesis has never been tested. Through chemical analysis of their contents, we herein investigate the use of pottery across an exceptionally long 9,000-y sequence from the Jōmon site of Torihama in western Japan, intermittently occupied from the Late Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene. Molecular and isotopic analyses of lipids from 143 vessels provides clear evidence that pottery across this sequence was predominantly used for cooking marine and freshwater resources, with evidence for diversification in the range of aquatic products processed during the Holocene. Conversely, there is little indication that ruminant animals or plants were processed in pottery, although it is evident from the faunal and macrobotanical remains that these foods were heavily exploited. Supported by other residue analysis data from Japan, our results show that the link between pottery and fishing was established in the Late Paleolithic and lasted well into the Holocene, despite environmental and socio-economic change. Cooking aquatic products in pottery represents an enduring social aspect of East Asian hunter-gatherers, a tradition based on a dependable technology for exploiting a sustainable resource in an uncertain and changing world.

Keywords: archaeology; ceramic; isotope; plant microfossil; residue analysis.

Fig. 1.

Location of the Torihama site (starred) on Wakasa Bay. Dotted contours indicate the bathymetry relative to present mean sea level. The coastline corresponding to the Incipient period was between approximately 65–50 m below present-day sea level (14). Topography is shaded by 50-m increments. Image courtesy of Hideaki Kojima (Wakasa Mikata Jōmon Museum).

Fig. 2.

Correspondence between the phases of pottery at Torihama and their molecular and isotopic characteristics. (A) Proportion of pots with an interpretable lipid residue (>5 μg/g⁻¹) containing full (C₁₈-C₂₀ APAAs and at least one isoprenoid fatty acid) or partial sets (C₁₈ APAAs and at least one isoprenoid fatty acid) of aquatic biomarkers. (B) Boxplot showing the range in the contribution of the SRR diastereomers of phytanic acid with number of observations indicated for each period. (C) Plot of bulk isotope values obtained from analysis of charred deposits. (D) Showing the pottery sequence at Torihama based on available radiocarbon dates (Table S3) against the Greenland ice-core oxygen isotope record, with lower δ¹⁸O values generally corresponding to lower temperatures.

Fig. 3.

δ¹³C values of C_16:0 and C_18:0 n-alkanoic acids extracted in three phases of Jōmon pottery from Torihama: (A) Incipient Jōmon, (B) Initial Jōmon, (C) Early Jōmon. The data are compared with reference ranges for authentic reference lipids from modern tissues and archaeological bone (Table S2) (, , –31) (66.7% confidence). Samples with the full range of aquatic biomarkers are shown by filled circles.