Chemical evidence for milk, meat, and marine resource processing in Later Stone Age pots from Namaqualand, South Africa

Abstract

The subsistence practices of Later Stone Age (LSA) foragers and herders living in Namaqualand South Africa are often difficult to differentiate based on their archaeological signatures but characterizing their dietary choices is vital to understand the economic importance of domesticates. However, ethnohistoric accounts have provided information on the cooking/boiling of marine mammal fat, mutton, plants, and milk by early herders and foragers across the Western Cape. To further investigate these reports, we use lipid residue analysis to characterize 106 potsherds from four open-air LSA sites, spanning in time from the early first millennium to the late second millennium AD. Two sites (SK2005/057A, SK2006/026) are located on the Atlantic coast whereas sites Jakkalsberg K and Jakkalsberg M are located further inland on the southern bank of the Orange River. Notably, at the coastal sites, the presence of marine biomarkers suggests the intensive and/or specialized processing of marine products in many vessels. The dominance of ruminant carcass products at inland sites and probable sheep remains confirms the importance of stockkeeping. Furthermore, and in good agreement with ethnohistoric accounts for its use, our results provide the first direct chemical evidence for the use of dairy products in LSA western South Africa.

Figure 1

Map of Southern Africa (inset) with Namaqualand enclosed in the darker grey area with approximate location of the archaeological sites mentioned in this study noted. Inset map adapted from https://d-maps.com/carte.php?num_car=4412&lang=en using Adobe Illustrator v. 27.1 (https://www.adobe.com/). Enlarged map adapted using Google Maps (https://www.google.com/maps) in Adobe Illustrator v.27.1 (https://www.adobe.com/).

Figure 2

(a) ‘Bosjesmans Frying Locusts’ painted by Samuel Daniell depicting a forager camp with a lugged ceramic vessel. (b) ‘Korah Preparing to Remove’ painted by Samuel Daniell depicting a “forager-type” bowl in a herder camp being prepared for moving. Distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license.

Figure 3

Partial gas chromatograms of acid-extracted FAMEs showing typical degraded animal fat lipid profiles from sites (a). SK2005/057, (b). SK2006/026, (c). JKB M and (d). JKB K. Red circles, n-alkanoic acids (fatty acids, FA), IS, internal standard, C₃₄ n-tetratriacontane. Number denotes carbon chain length.

Figure 4

Graphs showing the Δ¹³C (δ¹³C_18:0–δ¹³C_16:0) values from the Namaqualand potsherds by individual site. Datapoints shown as blue (filled circles in a and b and unfilled circles in c and d) indicates the processing of terrestrial animal fats and red stars indicate where APAAs of carbon chain length C₁₈–C₂₂ and isoprenoid acids (indicating marine resource processing) were also observed in the residue. The green dot indicates the external residue analysed. The ranges shown here represent the mean ± 1 s.d. of the Δ¹³C values for a global database comprising modern reference animal fats from Africa, UK (animals raised on a pure C₃ diet), Kazakhstan, Switzerland, and the Near East published elsewhere.

Figure 5

‘Homestead of the so-called Strandlopers (San or Khoikhoi) just north of the Orange River’s mouth’, showing the roasting of what appears to be shellfish over the fire. Attributed to Robert Jacob Gordon, 1779. Adapted from https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/RP-T-1914-17-91.