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The transmission of pottery technology among prehistoric European hunter-gatherers.

ABSTRACT: Human history has been shaped by global dispersals of technologies, although understanding of what enabled these processes is limited. Here, we explore the behavioural mechanisms that led to the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer communities in Europe during the mid-Holocene. Through radiocarbon dating, we propose this dispersal occurred at a far faster rate than previously thought. Chemical characterization of organic residues shows that European hunter-gatherer pottery had a function structured around regional culinary practices rather than environmental factors. Analysis of the forms, decoration and technological choices suggests that knowledge of pottery spread through a process of cultural transmission. We demonstrate a correlation between the physical properties of pots and how they were used, reflecting social traditions inherited by successive generations of hunter-gatherers. Taken together the evidence supports kinship-driven, super-regional communication networks that existed long before other major innovations such as agriculture, writing, urbanism or metallurgy.

SUBMITTER: Dolbunova E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9957732 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The transmission of pottery technology among prehistoric European hunter-gatherers.

Dolbunova Ekaterina E Lucquin Alexandre A McLaughlin T Rowan TR Bondetti Manon M Courel Blandine B Oras Ester E Piezonka Henny H Robson Harry K HK Talbot Helen H Adamczak Kamil K Andreev Konstantin K Asheichyk Vitali V Charniauski Maxim M Czekaj-Zastawny Agnieszka A Ezepenko Igor I Grechkina Tatjana T Gunnarssone Alise A Gusentsova Tatyana M TM Haskevych Dmytro D Ivanischeva Marina M Kabaciński Jacek J Karmanov Viktor V Kosorukova Natalia N Kostyleva Elena E Kriiska Aivar A Kukawka Stanisław S Lozovskaya Olga O Mazurkevich Andrey A Nedomolkina Nadezhda N Piličiauskas Gytis G Sinitsyna Galina G Skorobogatov Andrey A Smolyaninov Roman V RV Surkov Aleksey A Tkachov Oleg O Tkachova Maryia M Tsybrij Andrey A Tsybrij Viktor V Vybornov Aleksandr A AA Wawrusiewicz Adam A Yudin Aleksandr I AI Meadows John J Heron Carl C Craig Oliver E OE

Nature human behaviour 20221222 2

Human history has been shaped by global dispersals of technologies, although understanding of what enabled these processes is limited. Here, we explore the behavioural mechanisms that led to the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer communities in Europe during the mid-Holocene. Through radiocarbon dating, we propose this dispersal occurred at a far faster rate than previously thought. Chemical characterization of organic residues shows that European hunter-gatherer pottery had a function s ...[more]

PMID: 36550220

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Project description:Hunter-gatherers living in Europe during the transition from the late Pleistocene to the Holocene intensified food acquisition by broadening the range of resources exploited to include marine taxa. However, little is known on the nature of this dietary change in the Mediterranean Basin. A key area to investigate this issue is the archipelago of the Ègadi Islands, most of which were connected to Sicily until the early Holocene. The site of Grotta d'Oriente, on the present-day island of Favignana, was occupied by hunter-gatherers when Postglacial environmental changes were taking place (14,000-7,500 cal BP). Here we present the results of AMS radiocarbon dating, palaeogenetic and isotopic analyses undertaken on skeletal remains of the humans buried at Grotta d'Oriente. Analyses of the mitochondrial hypervariable first region of individual Oriente B, which belongs to the HV-1 haplogroup, suggest for the first time on genetic grounds that humans living in Sicily during the early Holocene could have originated from groups that migrated from the Italian Peninsula around the Last Glacial Maximum. Carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses show that the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of Favignana consumed almost exclusively protein from terrestrial game and that there was only a slight increase in marine food consumption from the late Pleistocene to the early Holocene. This dietary change was similar in scale to that at sites on mainland Sicily and in the rest of the Mediterranean, suggesting that the hunter-gatherers of Grotta d'Oriente did not modify their subsistence strategies specifically to adapt to the progressive isolation of Favignana. The limited development of technologies for intensively exploiting marine resources was probably a consequence both of Mediterranean oligotrophy and of the small effective population size of these increasingly isolated human groups, which made innovation less likely and prevented transmission of fitness-enhancing adaptations.

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The transmission of pottery technology among prehistoric European hunter-gatherers.

Publications

The transmission of pottery technology among prehistoric European hunter-gatherers.

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