Prehistoric Fermentation, Delayed-Return

Economies, and the Adoption

Pottery production, like fermentation, is a highly skilled technology that requires the careful selection and transformation of raw
ingredients under controlled conditions. Although the precise drivers for the invention and dispersal of ceramic containers are
uncertain, it is clear that even the earliest pottery had a culinary role for processing foods. We now know from organic residue
analysis that early pottery was used to process only a relatively limited range of the foodstuffs available, with biases, for example,
toward fish among some hunter-gatherers or dairy products by early farmers. One reason for such selection might have been that
pottery is well suited for the transformation of perishable fresh produce, such as milk and fish, to long(er)-life products that could
be stored, exchanged, or accumulated. Such fermented products would be particularly useful for maximizing the return from
seasonally abundant foods, thereby facilitating sedentism and greater investment in pottery production. Notwithstanding the fact
that direct chemical evidence for fermentation is difficult to obtain, here it is proposed that the early uses of pottery and fermentation
and the accumulation of storable surpluses are interrelated technologies that emerged in early sedentary or semi-sedentary societies
during the final Pleistocene and start of the Holocene.

Physiological adaptations observed in humans and some other gatherers is pottery. Ceramic technology is often seen as a
primates make it likely that the consumption of ethanol and culinary innovation, where foodstuffs could be easily boiled or
lacto-fermented foods gained dietary significance by a com- steamed to render them more palatable or combined to create
mon ancestor living some 10 million years ago (Amato et al. new tastes (Arnold 1988).1 Similarly, pottery is well suited for
2021; Carrigan et al. 2015; Peters et al. 2019). Beyond that, vir- fermentation, either as a container to initially boil foods and
tually nothing is known about the prehistory of fermentation or beverages prior to fermentation or as the fermentation vessel
how practices developed. Most sources of evidence proposed for itself. Porous ceramic vessels might retain the microorganisms
intentional fermentation are, at best, indirect. Organic residue needed for fermentation to proceed and would be essential
analysis of artifacts associated with the purposeful production of for controlling and manipulating liquid ferments. While grain
fermented foods and beverages may offer our clearest hope for could be transformed to bread with grinding technologies be-
directly identifying this practice in the past. The identification of fore pottery, beer would require a container (Fuller and Row-
dairy fats or fruit-derived organic acids on prehistoric artifacts lands 2011). Most histories and ethnographies of dairying also
may suggest that milk and grape juice were fermented to storable commence with boiling raw milk prior to fermentation into
and often more valuable commodities, but even these are not low-lactose products. For hunter-gatherers, fermentation of
conclusive. In the absence of such evidence, we may still infer fish, wild starchy tubers, and berries could easily be envisaged.
that fermentation was inevitably encountered, if not perfected, in These also have direct historic and ethnographic analogues,
prehistory, or even that the practice was widespread, considering particularly from populations living at high latitudes (de
the advantages that it brought for removing toxins, improving Laguna 2011:132; Heizer 1956:30). Many of these resources
food digestibility—particularly of starchy foods—and for deal- would have arrived in seasonal gluts that required scheduling
ing with surpluses following harvests of cereals or seasonal fruits. in preparation for mass harvesting and storage.
Such arguments are often made to lay the origins of fermenta- This essay aims to examine the evidence in the archaeological
tion squarely at the door of early farming communities (e.g., record for the use of pottery for fermentation. More broadly, it
Kuijt 2009). However, if we are to follow this line of argument,
then the history of intentional fermentation must have even
greater antiquity, as surpluses were also produced, and therefore 1. Various other “boiling” and “steaming” technologies have been pro-
had to be dealt with, by hunter-gatherers long before farming. posed, and these may well have existed prior to pottery, e.g., hot rock boiling.
One aspect of material culture that appears closely associ- The introduction of ceramic cooking “pots,” however, probably provided a
ated with both surplus-producing agriculturalists and hunter- more efficient and effective way to prepare foods in this way.

Oliver E. Craig is Deputy Head of Department and Professor of Archaeological Science in the Department of Archaeology of University of
York (Environment Building, Wentworth Way, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom [[email protected]]). This paper was
submitted 6 XI 20, accepted 26 VII 21, and electronically published 28 IX 21.

Current Anthropology, volume 62, supplement 24, October 2021. q 2021 The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. Published by
The University of Chicago Press for The Wenner‐Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. https://doi.org/10.1086/716610
 S000 Current Anthropology Volume 62, Supplement 24, October 2021

is proposed that early pottery production, fermentation, and East, whereby at ca. 9000 cal BP it was widely produced by
the accumulation of storable surpluses are interrelated tech- sedentary early farming communities of the Levant (Gibbs 2015;
nologies that allowed prehistoric populations to thrive by buff- Jordan et al. 2016) and subsequently northward and westward
ering risks and promoting sedentism. If so, this techno-culinary to Europe, with agriculture and pastoralism, as part of the so-
revolution may have had far-reaching effects on health, popu- called Neolithic package. The independent innovation of pot-
lation densities, and social inequality long before farming. tery by hunter-gatherers living in other boreal/aquatic produc-
tive ecotones are also well known, including in Northeastern
A Potted History America at ca. 3000 BP (Taché and Hart 2017) and the Amazon
Basin at ca. 8000 BP (Roosevelt et al. 1991).
Pottery is a technology fundamental to the manipulation and Although the origin and dispersal of pottery is relatively
processing of natural products. Ceramic vessels came to be well documented as an easily recognizable phenomenon ap-
produced by most societies around the world and were super- pearing in archaeological strata, the motivations that led to
seded only relatively recently by metal and plastic containers. its invention and widespread dispersal are far less clear. There
The earliest evidence for pottery production dates to the Late is no single explanation for the emergence of pottery globally,
Pleistocene of southern China as early as 20,000 years ago (Wu yet some broad bounds regarding the social and environmental
et al. 2012). Other Late Pleistocene pots are recorded in other contexts for it can be proposed. First, in Eurasia and Africa,
parts of China (Boaretto et al. 2009), the Russian Far East, and there is a step change in pottery production at the start of the
also Japan (Keally, Taniguchi, and Kuzmin 2003). In all cases, Holocene corresponding to climate amelioration and, in many
the environmental context for the emergence of pottery was cases, reduced sedentism. Second, globally, hunter-gatherer pot-
during near-glacial conditions. Late Pleistocene pottery produc- tery often emerges in highly productive ecological niches, such as
tion is best studied in Japan, where so-called Incipient Jomon boreal/aquatic ecotones and coastlines and environments con-
pots (ca. 16,000 to 11,000 BP) were produced by disparate groups ducive to the development of affluent, surplus producing and
of mobile hunter-gatherers. Produced in low numbers and with socially complex groups, again with reduced mobility. Third, in
relatively small volumes, the earliest pottery vessels were unlikely Central, Southern, and Western Europe, pottery also appears with
to have had an economic or utilitarian role. Often described as an the earliest evidence for farming also linked to surplus production
experimental phase of production (Kaner 2009), pottery at this and sedentism.
time may have had a greater social and symbolic value reserved Within this general scheme, it is important to point out
for special ceremonial events, perhaps involving feasting (Craig that pottery did not inevitably rise from all surplus-producing
et al. 2013; Hayden 1995). Late Pleistocene and Holocene societies; indeed many never
It is not until the very final phases of the Pleistocene period produced pottery, including those who undoubtedly encoun-
and the early Holocene (ca. 11,000 BP) when pottery begins tered it (Elliott et al. 2020). Nor is it likely that increased
to flourish (Taniguchi 2011; Wang and Sebillaud 2019). This sedentism was a prerequisite for pottery production. Although
boom in production corresponds to the establishment of warmer pots may have been too cumbersome to have been of use to many
temperate boreal conditions in Northern Eurasia and new op- highly mobile hunter-gatherers (Arnold 1988), there is evidence
portunities for the exploitation of forest products, such as deer that some mobile groups used pottery at stations strategically
and nut-bearing trees, although the extent of production was located in the landscape (Eerkens 2003), and the transportation
likely to be dependent on local environmental conditions (Mo- of even large vessels, particularly by boat or sleigh, cannot be
risaki 2020). With increased production during the early Ho- ruled out. Rather, it is proposed that pottery emerged in societies
locene, pottery most likely became a “practical” technology in- that created surplus and practiced storage as a risk-buffering
corporated in everyday culinary practices (Jordan and Zvelebil mechanism, and it is these practices that facilitated increased
2009:73). At this point, it has been suggested that pottery dis- sedentism (Hayden 2018; Jordan and Zvelebil 2009; Rowley-
persed westward into central Asia and then, more tentatively, to Conwy and Zvelebil 1989).
the forest-steppe of Eastern Europe by around 8000 BP (Gibbs The precise role of pottery proposed in these theoretical
and Jordan 2013; Jordan et al. 2016). From there, pottery was models is more difficult to ascertain. Pottery may have been
most likely acquired by hunter-gatherers of the eastern Baltic practically implicated in resource specialization, food process-
and southern Scandinavia in the following millennium. ing, and storage, including fermentation. Alternatively, or even
Also during the early Holocene, pottery appears in North additionally, it may have had a noneconomic role, for example,
Africa among semipermanent foragers as a separate innova- as a prestige technology used to denote power or success by
tion, at sites spanning sub-Saharan Africa to the Nile Valley, political aggrandizers that also characterize surplus-producing
perhaps associated with the reestablishment of tropical grass- societies (Hayden 1995, 1998). Evidence of pottery use through
lands (Garcea 2006; Huysecom et al. 2015). Some of the earliest chemical and molecular analysis offers an approach to directly
pottery in East Africa is found in lakeshore settings with in- address these questions and has been widely applied to both
tensive fishing and shellfish gathering by semi-sedentary groups agricultural and Holocene hunter-gatherers from Europe and
(Ashley and Grillo 2015). From an origin in Africa, it is argued Northern Asia. Based on the results of such analysis, here I
that pottery spread along a Mediterranean corridor to the Near examine the case for fermentation as a possible driver for the
Craig Fermentation and Early Pottery S000

uptake of pottery by Holocene food-producing and hunter- mentation, which is likely to be important in more temperate
gathering societies. climates. With the advent of new research on the chemical anal-
ysis of early hunter-gatherer pottery, it is worth examining the
Northern Hunter-Gatherers, Fermented Fish, evidence for its use in more detail.
The Japanese archipelago has the longest, richest, and most
and Pottery
intensely studied hunter-gatherer ceramic sequence anywhere
Drying and fermenting aquatic foods has a long tradition in in the world. Jomon (cord-marked) pottery extends from the
East Asian, Northern European, and Inuit societies (Stopp late Pleistocene (Incipient Jomon) through the early Holocene
2002) producing such delicacies as Alaskan fermented seal (Initial and Early Jomon) until the arrival of agriculture (rice
flipper, fermented herring (Surströmming), and dried bonito and millet) around 3000 BP. Analysis of over 800 samples
(Katsuobushi), an important ingredient in Japanese cuisine. from Late Pleistocene and early Holocene in Japan contexts
Many of these food preservation techniques do not require has shown that the vast majority of vessels during this period
pottery and may have been an adaptive strategy that predates were used for processing fish (Craig et al. 2013; Lucquin et al.
sedentism (Stopp 2002). Indeed, Speth argues that putrefied 2018) regardless of the environmental or geographical setting.
meat and fish were likely to have been an important com- This study used a range of complementary approaches, but
ponent of Northern Eurasian hunter-gatherer diets since the notably the thermal transformation products (q-(o-alkylphenyl)
Middle Paleolithic, allowing long-term storage, enhancing nu- alkanoic acids) of polyunsaturated fatty acids present in aquatic
tritional content, and serving as an alternative to cooking for oils were readily identified in many cases. The presence of these
predigesting proteins and fats (Speth 2017). While those uses compounds also shows that the aquatic oils were thermally pro-
seem entirely plausible, the evidence is less forthcoming. Recent cessed, presumably through boiling. The resolution of the ap-
amino acid analysis shows that high nitrogen stable isotope proach generally precludes the distinction of different aquatic
values (d15N) measured in Neanderthals are explained by the species such as fish, shellfish, or aquatic mammals, although
consumption of high trophic level foods (Jaouen et al. 2019) isotopic characterization of associated lipids can be used to dis-
rather than consumption of putrefied foods, as suggested by tinguish freshwater, marine, and, to some degree, anadromous
Speth.2 Other paleolithic evidence for the subaquatic deposition species such as salmon (Lucquin et al. 2018).
of animal carcasses (Speth 2017) and storage of bone marrow Extensive residue analysis has also shown that the use of
(Blasco et al. 2019) may both indicate delayed consumption, but Jomon pottery does not fundamentally change with climate
neither unequivocally points to fermentation. amelioration in the Holocene, a period corresponding to in-
The most conclusive and earliest evidence for prehistoric creased pottery production and sedentism (Lucquin et al. 2016,
fermentation is of fish from an Early Mesolithic “gutter” pit 2018). Second, although wild game, chestnuts, and acorns were
feature in southern Scandinavia that was packed with cyp- certainly exploited by Jomon Holocene hunter-gatherers, they
rinid bones (Boethius 2016). Although this example dates do not seem to have used pottery for processing these foods.
several thousand years before hunter-gatherers began produc- Rather it is suggested that from the Holocene, pottery assumes
ing pottery in this region, it is argued that such Holocene semi- a greater utilitarian function and was used to process a wider
sedentary hunter-fisher-gatherers may have had a greater need spectrum of aquatic foods, including shellfish, freshwater fish,
for storage and food preservation due to the amount of surplus and a greater range of marine species (Lucquin et al. 2018).
they generated (Boethius 2016). Similar fish fermentation pits Fishing may have intensified at this time corresponding to the
have also been proposed in East Asia (Nakajima et al. 2012), also appearance of shell middens along Japan’s coastlines and lake-
linked to highly productive fisheries, and there are numerous shores (Habu et al. 2011). Here I argue that pottery was pro-
cases of pits, often clay lined, being used for such purposes, duced in large quantities in anticipation of this seasonal resource
particular by high-latitude hunter-gatherers (Heizer 1956; Birket- creating aggregations of hunter-gatherers in semipermanent
Smith and de Laguna 1938). Compared to pits, skins, and in- settlements at these productive aquatic ecotones.
testinal containers, pottery offered an alternative technological A similar argument is made following the identification of
approach for dealing with such an aquatic surplus. As discussed aquatic oils as the main identifiable residue on pottery used
below, ceramic vessels may be more efficient at controlling fer- by other boreal hunter-gatherers in North America (Taché and
Craig 2015), Kodiak Island (Admiraal et al. 2020), Sakhalin
(Gibbs et al. 2017), the Korean peninsula, and the eastern Baltic
(Oras et al. 2017). This close association between early pottery
2. Consumption of putrefied foods would be expected to lead to rel-
and aquatic resource exploitation is argued to constitute a tra-
atively enriched d15N lysine values in collagen. Lysine is the main precursor
jectory analogous to the “agricultural” Neolithic (Gibbs 2015).
to putrescine and cadaverine formed during putrefaction, which would be
expected to be depleted in 15N, thus enriching the remaining dietary lysine
As with the agricultural Neolithic, the “aquatic Neolithic” sees
that is directly incorporated in collagen. Although d15N lysine values are pottery production developing in the wake of affluent, sedentary
not reported in Neanderthal collagen, this hypothesis is inconsistent with societies with delayed-return economies that are conducive to
the observed 15N-enriched glutamic acid values that are explained through the production of surpluses, albeit from seas, lakes, and rivers
consumption of high trophic level foods. rather than from the land.
 S000 Current Anthropology Volume 62, Supplement 24, October 2021

Although the use of pottery is often directly implicated in duction from fish oils is well documented ethnographically
the aquatic economy, its precise role is less clear. The antiquity (Kuhnlein and Chan 1998) and is still a highly valued commodity
of fishing demonstrably predates pottery in almost all cases. for precisely these purposes. Residue analyses of Mesolithic Er-
The “aquatic Neolithic” hypothesis therefore requires pottery tebolle “lamps” of southern Scandinavia (Heron et al. 2013) and
to have driven (or developed in response to) a step change in stone bowls from the Arctic have shown they were used for burning
fishing intensity augmented perhaps by other technologies for and rendering aquatic oils (Admiraal et al. 2018), and therefore
the mass capture, such as nets, traps, or weirs. Admittedly, the that prehistoric hunter-gatherers also possessed this technology.
evidence for such artifacts is less forthcoming, and in certain Oil production is, however, less likely for the majority of Jomon
cases, as with the Scandinavian fermentation pits, such tech- pots as well as many other hunter-gatherer “cooking pots” so far
nologies may have existed before pottery (Bērziņš 2010). It is analyzed (Courel et al. 2020). Compared to the Ertebolle lamps
therefore arguable whether knowledge of ceramic production or Arctic stone bowls, carbonized deposits adhered to the surface
predated its need; the reasons for ceramic adoption may be of cooking vessels contain a much greater relative proportion of
more complex, linked in part due to dispersal dynamics, the nitrogen (Lucquin et al. 2018), suggesting that they were used in-
presence of competing technologies, and demographic consid- stead for processing products relatively high in protein. The pots
erations. Notably, many surplus-producing hunter-gatherers liv- from Yukura cave were therefore most likely used for cooking pre-
ing along resource-rich aquatic ecotones never produced pottery, served fish that was brought to the site either dried or fermented.
such as Mesolithic foragers of the Atlantic facade in Western
Europe (Elliott et al. 2020) or hunter-gatherers of the Northern Fermentation, Dairying, and the
Pacific coast of America (Ames and Maschner 2000).
Agricultural Neolithic
Alternatively, large-scale feasting and other consumption
activities could also be reasonably proposed to link pottery with The origins of food production can be traced back to several
surplus production and could have little to do with an economic centers of domestication around the world, each related to
need to process fish. Storage and accumulation of aquatic re- major cereal crops such as rice, wheat, maize, and millet. The
sources offers an alternative albeit related hypothesis, and pot- timing for the domestication of each of these crops is vari-
tery would seem well suited for this purpose. Wide-mouthed able, but in each case they only became a major staple from
pottery vessels, which commonly characterize most early pot- the Holocene. In Southwestern Asia cereal agriculture was al-
tery assemblages, could have been easily covered with a lid made ready widespread several thousand years before the advent of
from wood or another perishable material when required. In pottery (Gibbs 2015) and capable of supporting large seden-
classical antiquity, ceramic vessels were used to ferment fish to tary communities (Bar-Yosef 2012) with storage technologies.
produce small batches of garum or salsamenta for consumption It has been suggested that beer production began in these
(Curtis 1991), and pottery in Southeast Asia is still used for this Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A cultures at the very end
purpose (Yankowski, Kerdsap, and Chang 2015). These ferments of the Pleistocene (12,500–11,500 cal BP) as commodity for elab-
invariably used salt, but in prehistory, pottery may have been orate feasting, marking increasing social complexity at this time
particularly advantageous for controlling the fermentation and (Hayden, Canuel, and Shanse 2012). In this scenario, fermentation
avoiding the buildup of harmful microorganisms in the absence was achieved, without pottery, in large stone mortars that have
of salt, for example, by sterilizing the ferment prior to inocula- traditionally been interpreted for bread making. Similar arguments
tion, regulating the temperature, and arresting fermentation. have been made for the fermentation of sorghum in early pottery
Storage and fermentation as opposed to cooking is hard to in the central Nile Valley from ca. 6000 cal BP (Haaland 2007).
reveal directly in archaeological pottery using organic residue As will be discussed below, direct evidence for fermented cereal
analysis, especially if the commodities are heated as part of products is extremely difficult to demonstrate, and while early beer
the process. Indirect evidence may be gained by considering is conceivable in all early or proto-agricultural societies, these
either the time elapsed or the distances traveled between the theories remain speculative.
procurement of food products and their consumption. For ex- A clearer case can be made for the fermentation of milk by
ample, an investigation of the pottery from the Yukura cave, an early African and Western Eurasian pastoralists. First, without
Incipient and Initial Jomon site in Kanto Province, Japan, shows fermentation, raw milk would spoil quickly and would have been
that at least half the potsherds were clearly used for processing of limited nutritional value. Second, it is unlikely that a sub-
aquatic products, most likely salmonids (Lucquin et al. 2018). stantial portion of the population were able to digest the sugars
While this is not surprising in the context of Jomon pottery (lactose) in raw milk until at least the Bronze Age in Europe, as
use, the site is located at over 1,500 m a.s.l. and some distance they lacked the genetic adaptation responsible for the produc-
(15 km) from the nearest salmon river, implying that the fish tion of lactase as adults (Burger et al. 2020). Lactose can be greatly
had been preserved and transported to this remote site. reduced in milk products through a range of processing meth-
Aquatic products can be processed into a storable commodity ods, many of which involve fermentation, for example, pro-
in many ways, including fermentation, through drying, or by duction of yoghurts and cheeses. In other regions, such as central
rendering fatty tissues to purify oils that can be consumed or Asia, sophisticated prehistoric dairy economies were practiced
used as lubricants or illuminants. The practice of grease pro- by non-lactase-producing populations (Jeong et al. 2018).
Craig Fermentation and Early Pottery S000

It is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that when we ob- through chemical analysis of large limestone basins (Dietrich
serve evidence for dairy exploitation in prehistoric popula- et al. 2012) and at Raqefet Cave, Israel, where Natufian stone
tions, long before adult lactase persistence, they possessed the mortars were found to be associated with cereal remains, both
technology to ferment. European ceramic sieves dating to the cases predating pottery (Liu et al. 2018). Claims have also been
LBK (Linearbandkeramik) period (ca. 7000–6500 BP), seem- made for beer at Godin Tepe (ca. 5500 BP) in the Zagros
ingly well suited for separating fermented milk products, have Mountains of western Iran (Michel, McGovern, and Badler
been shown to contain milk lipids (Salque et al. 2013). These 2008) through chemical analysis of large earthenware jars.
artifacts provide the clearest direct evidence of prehistoric fer- Even though, as noted above, there is no reason to dispute
mentation in agricultural societies to date. Earlier pottery vessels these claims on theoretical or contextual grounds, the chemical
from Southeast Asia, southwestern Europe, and North Africa analysis is lacking. These claims invariably rely on the detection
also are implicated in dairying and were most likely used for of calcium oxalate (a major component of “beerstone”) using a
heating raw milk in preparation for fermentation dairy prod- chemical spot test (Feigl 1956), which would seem wholly in-
ucts directly (Dunne et al. 2012; Evershed et al. 2008). It is clear appropriate considering that the test itself is not specific to the
from these studies that dairy products were exploited, albeit target analyte and that the oxalates may occur in many sub-
not systematically, as soon as domesticated ruminants (and stances other than beerstone. A more reasonable claim is made
pottery) were available. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, for the identification of beer in Northern China (ca. 5000 BP;
early Neolithic pottery seems to have been used almost ex- Wang et al. 2016). Here ion chromatography is used to more
clusively for this purpose (Cramp et al. 2014), and dairy was a reliably identify oxalate, and although in no way specific for
major commodity identified in early farmer pottery from south- beerstone, the ceramic artifacts seem to be manufactured for
ern Scandinavia (Craig et al. 2011; Cubas et al. 2020). specific liquid manipulation, and the inference is supported by
The significance of fermented dairy foods to early farming macrobotanical remains of cereals. Other approaches have
societies is less clear. The economic advantage of dairying over tried to match suites of compounds in ancient vessels with
meat production is often emphasized and has even been sug- those in modern beers (Farag et al. 2019; Perruchini et al.
gested as a driver for ruminant animal domestication itself 2018), but these generally fail to consider the many other
(Roffet-Salque et al. 2018). Dairy products or indeed the pos- sources for these compounds or the effects of molecular dia-
session of herds of milk-bearing animals might well serve as genesis. Few studies have attempted to link newly established
an important surplus that could be accumulated and exchanged, biomarkers for cereals, such as alkylresorcinols for wheat and
or in the case of hard fermented cheese, consumed when other barley (Hammann and Cramp 2018) or millicin for broom-
resources were scarcer, thus buffering risks. As food production corn millet (Heron et al. 2016), to beer production.
spread to new regions, the initial role of such new foods and The fermentation of seasonally available wild or domesti-
the motivations for their adoption has also been questioned. In cated fruits offers another obvious method for dealing with
Northern Europe, cereal-based products might have initially surpluses that would otherwise quickly spoil. The sugars in
held greater significance as a prestige food (Fischer 2002) rather fruits are easily fermented through the action of aerobic yeasts
than as an economic staple. Similarly, it is dangerous to assume (Saccharomyces spp.) that live on these plants. Evidence for
that dairying was a technology that could be simply adapted to harvesting and controlling the fermentation to make wine has
different environments by migrating farmers or adopted by in- also been linked with pottery. The earliest proposed dates for
digenous populations with little prior knowledge. The fermen- wine production (ca. 8000–7800 BP) derive from residue
tation process requires specific biotechnological knowledge (Sib- analysis of Early Neolithic potsherds from Georgia (McGovern
besson 2019) in order to turn what was to them a toxic product et al. 2017). The identification of wine is achieved principally
into an edible one. It has been suggested that it was the trans- through the identification of tartaric acid which is at high
formation process itself and the symbolic meaning it represents concentration (1–5 g/L) in grape juice, although a whole range
that made dairy such an alluring product to early farmers (Saul, of other approaches have also been proposed, the majority of
Glykou, and Craig 2014). Analysis of vessel types used to cook which lack specificity (Drieu et al. 2020). It should also be
or prepare dairy products as opposed to other foods, and the noted that tartaric acid (i) is also found in other fruits at high
context of their deposition offers an approach to understand the concentration, (ii) is present in many other organic substances
“value” that these products may have held in prehistory (Craig at lower concentration including soils and sediments, and
et al. 2015; Saul, Glykou, and Craig 2014). (iii) does not indicate fermentation (Drieu et al. 2020).
Considering these caveats, the earliest evidence of wine pro-
Direct Evidence for Prehistoric Fermented Beverages duction seems best supported for the Late Neolithic of North-
ern Greece (Garnier and Valamoti 2016), where the chemical
The chemical identification of fermented alcoholic beverages is evidence is supported by archeobotanical remains of crushed
one of the most controversial areas of biomolecular archae- grape pips. For earlier claims (McGovern et al. 1996, 2004,
ology, and few claims are accepted without challenge. Early 2017) where the archeobotanical evidence is less forthcoming,
beer production is tentatively proposed from Pre-Pottery the chemical evidence needs to be treated more critically. For
Neolithic B phases at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Anatolia example, tartaric acid has been identified in hunter-gatherer
 S000 Current Anthropology Volume 62, Supplement 24, October 2021

pottery from the site of Zamostje 2 in the Upper Volga region main regarding the origin of these compounds, and while it
of Russia (Drieu et al. 2020), far from the nearest suitable land seems entirely reasonable that alcohol consumption was prac-
for grape production, showing the potential for false positive ticed in later prehistoric highly stratified societies, the residue
identification. In this case, the molecule is most likely derived data remains equivocal. Both fungi and bacteria are key to the
from processing of Viburnum berries that were visibly charred early diagenesis of organic matter and could be envisaged
to the ceramic surface. The appearance of large-scale pottery quickly engulfing discarded pottery vessels, leaving chemical
production in the Zamostje 2 sequence at ca. 7500 cal BP is signatures similar to those expected from fermentation. More
intriguing in itself. Excavation of the earlier aceramic “Meso- detailed metagenomic and metaproteomic approaches may be
lithic” layers shows that the site’s inhabitants were already adept useful for distinguishing specific “heirloom” microbes (Warin-
at fishing and possessed mass capture technologies such as weirs ner, Speller, and Collins 2015) intentionally added as ferment-
and nets (Bondetti et al. 2020). Here, the earliest pottery vessels ing agents, from those invading the vessels following use, but
that contained residues of fish and fruits (Bondetti et al. 2020) such research is still in its infancy. Here and in other cases in-
may have been to help deal with surpluses generated at such a dependent lines of contextual evidence, including vessel forms,
productive setting, rather than in response to intensification or the context of depositional environment, and the presence of
economic change. other food/drink derived molecules will be needed in order to
help infer fermentation.
Sorting the Rotten from the Raw and the Cooked:
Is There Biomolecular Evidence for Fermentation? Conclusions
As the process of fermentation mirrors the initial stages of Documenting the antiquity of fermentation is extremely chal-
early diagenesis of organic matter, that is, degradation through lenging, but as Sibbesson points out, humans did not invent
the action of microorganisms, it is very difficult to distinguish fermentation; they merely learned to use it to their advantage
chemically. For this reason, most of the evidence outlined in varying degrees probably from early prehistory (Sibbesson
above relies on identification of the raw food (milk, fruit juices, 2019). Therefore, the challenge is to understand the larger
fish oils) rather than the fermented product or the fermenta- shifts in the production of fermented products within a broader
tion agent itself. So, what are the prospects for identifying the socioeconomic and technological context. I suggest that one of
smoking gun that would reveal conclusive chemical evidence these began with surplus producing, so-called affluent hunter-
of prehistoric fermentation? gatherers, and is associated with the development and dispersal
Several approaches have been proposed. Organic acids of pottery technology during the early Holocene. As discussed,
(succinic, fumaric, pyruvic, citramalic, and lactic acids) pro- there is convincing evidence for fermentation of fish in pits
duced during the fermentation of wine (Ribéreau-Gayon et al. before pottery, for example, in southern Scandinavia (Boethius
2006) are frequently identified in prehistoric vessels. But as 2016). Whether this marks a significant economic practice at
these are also present in a wide range of other organic prod- this time is difficult to discern, and more work is needed to
ucts, unless found in association with tartaric acid they offer identify and date similar features. Indeed, small caches that
little diagnostic resolution. Ergosterol, a sterol specific to fungi, hunter-gatherers returned to seasonally most likely had a much
has been proposed as a marker of yeast used to ferment cereals longer antiquity than such specialized installations and do not
in Bronze Age/Early Iron Age vessels from eastern Sweden imply sedentism nor any of the changes in social structure that
(Isaksson, Karlsson, and Eriksson 2010). Although ergosterol are often associated with delayed-return economies (Ingold
is widely present in soils and sediments, these authors consider 1983; Testart 1982). In southern Scandinavia, as in other areas
this source less likely, noting that the compound was absent on of the Baltic and central Russia, intensified fishing during the
earlier hunter-gatherer pottery from the region and that lipids Holocene promoted sedentism, creating conditions for the
are generally immobile in the burial environment. acquisition of pottery from other hunter-gatherers or adjacent
More recently, bacteriohopanes have been identified in pot- farmers once the technology was available. As with other Ho-
tery from the Early Iron Age hill fort of Vix-Mont Lassois in locene Eurasian and North American hunter-gatherers, they
eastern France (Rageot et al. 2019). These compounds are de- invested time and labor in large-scale pottery production in
rived from hopanoids, present in a wide range of bacteria, in- anticipation of these resources that were then processed and
cluding alcohol fermentation species such as Zymomonas mo- presumably stored for consumption or exchange. Fermenta-
bilis. Similar hopane distributions have also been proposed to tion could easily be envisaged to be an important part of this
indicate fermentation of agave, following their identification in technological complex, but whether pottery was directly in-
pottery with distinctive typologies from Teotihuacan in Mexico volved remains to be demonstrated.
(Correa-Ascencio et al. 2014). Almost identical arguments have been made, albeit far less
At Vix, the bacterial hopanoid proxies also seem to be more controversially, for the manufacture of stone vats and pottery
commonly associated with fine wares containing millet, plant for dealing with grain surpluses in earliest agricultural soci-
waxes, and beeswax, suggesting these vessels held beer or mead eties, leading to what is commonly perceived to be the most
and were used for elite feasting. Nevertheless, doubts still re- fundamental social change in our history. Early pastoralists
Craig Fermentation and Early Pottery S000

engaged in delayed-return economies through storage “on the Boaretto, Elisabetta, Xiaohong Wu, Jiarong Yuan, Ofer Bar-Yosef, Vikki Chu,
Yan Pan, Kexin Liu, et al. 2009. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and bone
hoof ” and by creating fermented dairy products that could be collagen associated with early pottery at Yuchanyan Cave, Hunan Province,
stored or exchanged; pottery was almost certainly directly China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 106(24):
implicated in this process. A final thought is that delayed- 9595.
Boethius, Adam. 2016. Something rotten in Scandinavia: the world’s earliest
return, surplus-producing economies also meant that commu- evidence of fermentation. Journal of Archaeological Science 66:169–180.
nities were no longer living at the ecological limits and there- Bondetti, Manon, Sofia Scott, Alexandre Lucquin, John Meadows, Olga
fore had greater capacity to make decisions on what, when, and Lozovskaya, Ekaterina Dolbunova, Peter Jordan, and Oliver E. Craig. 2020.
Fruits, fish and the introduction of pottery in the Eastern European plain:
how to eat. In these societies, fermentation and pottery as well lipid residue analysis of ceramic vessels from Zamostje 2. Quaternary In-
as other novel culinary technologies allowed foodstuffs to be ternational 541:104–114.
transformed and combined to create a myriad of new edibles Burger, Joachim, Vivian Link, Jens Blöcher, Anna Schulz, Christian Sell, Zoé
Pochon, Yoan Diekmann, et al. 2020. Low prevalence of lactase persis-
and cuisines. What value these new foods and “dishes” held is tence in Bronze Age Europe indicates ongoing strong selection over the last
harder to discern. Indeed, the nutritional benefits may have 3,000 years. Current Biology 30(21):4307–4315.e13.
been less important than their perceived value as intoxicants Carrigan, Matthew A., Oleg Uryasev, Carole B. Frye, Blair L. Eckman, Candace
R. Myers, Thomas D. Hurley, and Steven A. Benner. 2015. Hominids adapted
or medicines or even for their aesthetic qualities, such as taste, or to metabolize ethanol long before human-directed fermentation. Proceedings
notions of cleanliness, pollution, and identity: values that food of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 112(2):458.
often assumes in contemporary settings (Hastorf 2016:224; Pearson Correa-Ascencio, Marisol, Ian G. Robertson, Oralia Cabrera-Cortés, Rubén
Cabrera-Castro, and Richard P. Evershed. 2014. Pulque production from
2003; Saul, Glykou, and Craig 2014). If so, these qualities may fermented agave sap as a dietary supplement in Prehispanic Mesoamerica.
have been more important at driving the dispersal of foodstuffs Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 111(39):14223.
and associated culinary technologies than is often credited. Courel, Blandine, Harry K. Robson, Alexandre Lucquin, Ekaterina Dolbunova,
Ester Oras, Kamil Adamczak, Søren H. Andersen, et al. 2020. Organic residue
analysis shows sub-regional patterns in the use of pottery by Northern Eu-
ropean hunter-gatherers. Royal Society Open Science 7(4):192016.
Acknowledgments Craig, Oliver E., H. Saul, A. Lucquin, Y. Nishida, K. Tache, L. Clarke, A.
Thompson, et al. 2013. Earliest evidence for the use of pottery. Nature
I thank the Wenner-Gren Foundation for inviting this con- 496(7445):351–354.
Craig, Oliver E., Lisa-Marie Shillito, Umberto Albarella, Sarah Viner-Daniels,
tribution. Thanks especially to Henny Piezonka and Marjolein Ben Chan, Ros Cleal, Robert Ixer, et al. 2015. Feeding Stonehenge: cuisine
Admiraal and other members of the Early Pottery Research and consumption at the Late Neolithic site of Durrington Walls. Antiquity
Groups for their discussions and comments on this topic. 89(347):1096–1109.
Craig, Oliver E., Val J. Steele, Anders Fischer, Soenke Hartz, Soren H.
Funding was provided by the European Research Council Andersen, Paul Donohoe, Aikaterini Glykou, et al. 2011. Ancient lipids
Advanced Grant INDUCE (The Innovation, Dispersal and reveal continuity in culinary practices across the transition to agriculture in
Use of Ceramics in NE Europe, ERC-ADG-2015 No 695539). Northern Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
USA 108(44):17910–17915.
Cramp, Lucy J. E., Jennifer Jones, Alison Sheridan, Jessica Smyth, Helen
Whelton, Jacqui Mulville, Niall Sharples, and Richard P. Evershed. 2014.
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