Project description:Archaeological dental calculus has emerged as a rich source of ancient biomolecules, including proteins. Previous analyses of proteins extracted from ancient dental calculus revealed the presence of the dietary milk protein β-lactoglobulin, providing direct evidence of dairy consumption in the archaeological record. However, the potential for calculus to preserve other food-related proteins has not yet been systematically explored. Here we analyse shotgun metaproteomic data from 100 archaeological dental calculus samples ranging from the Iron Age to the post-medieval period (8thC BC - 19thC AD) in Britain, as well as dental calculus from contemporary dental patients and recently deceased individuals, to characterise the range and extent of dietary proteins preserved in dental calculus. In addition to milk proteins, we detected proteomic evidence of foodstuffs such as cereals and plant products, as well as the digestive enzyme salivary amylase. We discuss the importance of optimized protein extraction methods, data analysis approaches, and authentication strategies in the identification of dietary proteins from archaeological dental calculus. Our ability to detect dietary proteins, although limited, demonstrates the potential of these methods to robustly identify foodstuffs in the archaeological record that are under-represented due to their poor preservation.
Project description:This project explores dietary proteins in human dental calculus through shotgun proteomics. These files are in addition to those accidentally not included in the original publication, Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions . DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03798-4. Files include raw, mgf, and mzid files from the two Botai individuals: DA092 (Botai 2A), DA089 (CII(3) 30-40), and additional files from Russian sites: DA431, DA431 (Lebyazhinka 5, LEB N-0), Z333 (Khvalynsk 2, KHA2 N-12), and Z444 (Murziha 2, MUR2 N-128) as well as the blanks used in the experiments. It also inlcludes the corresponding files for DA436, as in the previous upload an under-injected sample was included as the MDF.
Project description:Food systems is an analytical framework developed in agricultural economics that encompasses the entire process from food production, processing, distribution, preparation, to consumption. In archaeology, the distinction between food supply, which indicates the presence of food resources within a region, and accessibility, which reflects the extent to which individuals could actually obtain these resources, potentially enables a more nuanced reconstruction of past human diets. In this study, we utilised this food system framework to investigate the accessibility of food items for commoners in premodern Osaka, a logistical hub with a diverse food supply. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis of bone collagen and palaeoproteomic analysis of dental calculus were performed for eight skeletal individuals from the Osaka Ofukacho site. The stable isotope ratios were within the previously reported ranges for premodern commoners in Japan. A total of 38 dietary proteins across 17 taxa were identified in the calculus. The identified food items included Pagrus major, which was an economically high-grade fish, Salmonidae, which was traded over long distances, the meat of terrestrial mammals, which were publicly avoided during this period, and cottonseed, which was possibly used as an edible oil. These findings reflect high accessibility to diverse food items even among commoners, which was maintained by the well-developed transport network of premodern Osaka. These results emphasize the pivotal role of commoners in the development of Japan’s culinary culture.
Project description:Dental calculus is becoming a crucial material in the study of past populations, with increasing interest in its proteomic and genomic content. Here we suggest further development of protocol for analysis of ancient proteins and a combined approach for subsequent ancient DNA extraction. We tested the protocol on recent teeth. We then applied the optimised protocol to ancient teeth to limit the destruction of calculus, as it is a precious and irreplaceable source of dietary, microbiological, and ecological information in the archaeological context. Finally, the applicability of the protocol was proven on samples of ancient calculus.
Project description:The extreme environments of the Tibetan Plateau offer significant challenges to human survival, demanding novel adaptations. While the role of biological and agricultural adaptations in enabling early human colonization of the plateau has been widely discussed, the contribution of pastoralism is less well understood, especially the dairy pastoralism that has historically been central to Tibetan diets. Here, we analyze preserved proteins from the dental calculus of 40 ancient individuals to report the earliest direct evidence of dairy consumption on the Tibetan Plateau. Our palaeoproteomic results demonstrate that dairy pastoralism began on the higher plateau by approximately 3,500 years ago, more than 2,000 years earlier than the recording of dairying in historical sources. With less than 1% of the Tibetan Plateau dedicated to farmland, pastoralism and the milking of ruminants were essential for large-scale human expansion into agriculturally-marginal regions that make up the majority of the plateau. Dairy pastoralism allowed conversion of abundant grasslands into nutritional human food, which facilitating adaptation in the face of extreme climatic and altitudinal pressures, and maximizing the land area available for long-term human occupation of the “roof of the world”.
Project description:The dental calculus proteome from human remains is a considered a valuable archaeological resource for studying the diet, oral microbiome, health/disease of individuals and occupation activities individuals within past societies/civilisations. The combination of advancements in LC/MS instrument sensitivity and sample prepartion methods enables the analysis of these well preserved proteomes otherwise invisible to other biomolecular approaches. Maximizing proteome recovery from this minute and finite resource is paramount to our understanding of these past societies and civilisations in terms of diet and disease. Here we compare the more traditional ultrafiltration-based and acetone precipitation approaches with the newer paramagnetic bead approach (SP3) in a step towards achieving this aim. We specifically evaluate different acids (EDTA and HCl) and proteome extraction methodologies (Ultrafiltration, Acetone Precipitation and SP3)to test the influence of demineralization acid and method of extraction on the recovered proteome complexity (including numbers of peptides recovered) and sequence coverageand observed for these ancient dental calculus specimens.
Project description:To investigate dairy consumption in ancient Mongolia, we analysed dental calculus samples from four Late Bronze Age (LBA, 1500-1000 BCE) individuals for proteomic evidence of milk proteins. As many archaeological sites before Mongolia's Iron Age suffer from a dearth of occupational materials, looking to biomolecular markers of dietary intake can open new investigational avenues into ancient economies. In this case, we use a previously established method of extracting proteins from calculus to explore the consumption of dairy products at LBA Khirigsuur sites in northern Mongolia's Hovsgol Aimag. Seven of nine individual's calculus contained peptides from the whey protein Beta-lactoglobulin from Ovis, Capra hircus, Bos, and general Bovidae species. Aside from proteomics, these and 16 other individuals from the site were analysed for aDNA. We found that 18 of the 20 were primarily from one genetic ancestral group, and Ancient North Eurasian (ANE). One of the outliers represents a combination of ANE and Western Steppe Herder (WSH), with the other a combination of ANE and Eastern Asian (EE). This finding, while important in its own right, evidences the earliest known dairy consumption in Mongolia, and supports a widely held assumption that pastoralism was a primary subsistence strategy in the ancient Eastern Steppes. The combined proteomic and DNA evidence suggest that Western Steppe dairy animals and technology entered Mongolia before genetic admixture.
Project description:Characterisation of the metaproteome of a dental calculus sample extracted from a Neolithic burial, San Lorenzo Bellizzi, Italy (CS).