What about Dinner? Chemical and Microresidue Analysis Reveals the Function of Late Neolithic Ceramic Pans.

The Late Neolithic palafitte site, Ustie na Drim, in the northern part of Lake Ohrid (North Macedonia), excavated in 1962, offered ceramic fragments of large, flat, elongated pans. These artifacts could be dated by relative chronology to roughly around 5200-5000 BC. According to their shape and technological traits, the ceramic pans were probably used for baking. The attached materials on the surface of studied pan fragments were sampled for consequent chemical and microscopical analyses (i.e., analyses of starch, phytoliths, and microscopic animal remains). An immunological method revealed the presence of pork proteins in samples. The presence of organic residues of animal origin was, moreover, confirmed by the detection of cholesterol using gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Analysis of detected microscopic botanical objects revealed starch grains of several plants (i.e., oak, cattail, and grasses). An interesting find was the hair of a beetle larva, which could be interpreted contextually as the khapra beetle, a pest of grain and flour. Based on our data, we suppose that the ceramic pans from Ustie na Drim were used for the preparation of meals containing meat from common livestock in combination with cereals and wild plants.

Determination of Milk Products in Ceramic Vessels of Corded Ware Culture from a Late Eneolithic Burial.

In this study, a soil from two ceramic vessels belonging to Corded Ware culture, 2707⁻2571 B.C., found in a cremation grave discovered in Central Moravia, Czech Republic, was analyzed using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization⁻mass spectrometry (MALDI⁻MS) combined with advanced statistical treatment (principal component analysis, PCA, and orthogonal projection to latent structures discriminant analysis, OPLS-DA) and by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). MALDI⁻MS revealed the presence of triacylglycerols in both vessels. This analytical technique was used for the analysis of the soil content from archaeological ceramic vessels for the first time. Targeted ELISA experiments consequently proved the presence of milk proteins in both ceramic vessels. These results represent the first direct evidence of the use of milk or dairy products in the Eneolithic period in Moravian Corded Ware Culture and help to better understand the diet habits and living conditions of Eneolithic populations in Central Europe.

Extensive archaeobotanical data estimate carrying capacity, duration, and land use of the Late Bronze Age settlement site Breznice (Czech Republic).

The reconstruction of the settlement´s hinterland and acquisition of plant resources is one of the crucial questions in the field of environmental archaeology. Our study is focused on the reconstruction of the settlement's structure and character of the environment from which the site drew resources. These research questions were addressed by the interpretation of plant macroremains, charcoals, and the results of the spatial model. We have focused on the maximum size of the settlement that the surrounding countryside was able to withstand. Our results clearly demonstrated significant deforestation and intensive land use in the vicinity of the Late Bronze Age study site. As the weed taxa showed, a wide range of crops was grown in rather dry or less often in damp fields. Based on our archaeobotanical results, we were able to reconstruct several types of grasslands: dry pastures and fallow fields on plateaus and slopes, wet pastures or meadows in the floodplain. Acidophilous oak forests, alluvial forests, and shrubs were reconstructed as the most common forest habitats in the vicinity of the study site. Based on the archaeological knowledge of the region, we assume relatively low population density during the Late Bronze Age, and thus only a small part of the more or less forested landscape was significantly affected by human activities.

Ecological and historical factors behind the spatial structure of the historical field patterns in the Czech Republic.

Historical field systems are an essential part of the traditional cultural landscape of societies with primarily agricultural subsistence. They embody many functions and values, as they affect the productional, ecological and hydrological functioning of the landscape, its cultural values, the way people perceive the landscape, and their impact on present-day farming. As an aspect of the historical landscape, field systems are a topic investigated in landscape archaeology, environmental studies, historical geography, landscape ecology, and related disciplines. Historical field systems can form many complex spatial structures, shapes and patterns. This paper focuses on identifying environmental and historical/cultural driving forces during the formation and the historical development of various field pattern types. We worked with 523 settlements established in the medieval to the early modern period (approx. 900-1600 AD) in the present-day Czech Republic. We have determined the proportions of different field pattern types in the examined cadastres and have statistically compared them with a variety of environmental and geographical predictors. Our results indicate a strong influence of environmental predictors (terrain undulation, cadastre size), the impact of specific historical events and associated social changes (e.g. land confiscations by the state in the seventeenth century), and a significant relationship between field pattern types and settlement layout types. Furthermore, we have observed the different adaptations of field pattern types to similar environmental conditions, as well as the impact of social and political factors on the processes of landscape formation. Our paper provides the first detailed analysis of the geographical distribution of traditional field systems on the scale of an entire modern state, and emphasizes the importance of transdisciplinary research on cultural landscapes.