En este artículo se aborda la cuestión de la producción, comercialización y consumo de vino en el Noroeste peninsular, en particular en la región portuguesa de Trás-os-Montes, inscrita en el sur del ...conventus Asturum (antigua provincia de la Gallaecia). A pesar de la total ausencia de ánforas en el yacimiento romano de Castro de Avelãs (Bragança) y en su entorno inmediato, es posible que este producto, tan importante en época romana, se haya consumido y quizás hasta producido y distribuido en la zona usando contenedores diferentes. En par ticular se propone que un tipo de tinajas se hayan usado para el almacenamiento, transpor te y quizás hasta para la producción de vino.
Esta hipótesis se refuerza con los análisis realizados mediante cromatografia de gases/espectometría de masas sobre tres de estos recipientes cerámicos recuperados en el yacimiento, registrando marcadores compatibles con el vino. Ante estos datos, se ha abierto la discusión sobre el consumo y la producción de vino (y de otros productos) en este territorio del sureste de la Gallaecia.
This paper presents new results of an interdisciplinary investigation of the diet and subsistence strategies of populations living in the North-Pontic region during the Eneolithic and the Early ...Bronze Age (ca. 3800 BC to the 2500 BC). New organic residue analyses of >200 sherds from five Eneolithic sites and two Early Bronze Age settlements are presented. The molecular and stable isotope results are discussed in relation to zooarchaeological evidence. Overall, the findings suggest that each community relied on either a hunting- or a husbandry-based subsistence strategy dependent upon the ecosystem in which they settled; horses and wild animals dominated subsistence in the forest-steppe communities in contrast to ruminant husbandry in the steppe.
Esta investigación parte del interés por definir el contenido de recipientes cerámicos españoles usados por siglos como envases de productos agrícolas que eran exportados de España a sus colonias ...americanas. Para ello hemos analizado una serie de fragmentos de botijas que se encontraron en los niveles estratigráficos coloniales del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México. Se trata de 10 muestras recuperadas en el marco de las excavaciones arqueológicas del Proyecto Templo Mayor del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Los resultados obtenidos nos han permitido establecer que el contenido de estas botijas no siempre fue el mismo. Identificamos la presencia, muchas veces combinada, de productos de origen vegetal (probablemente aceites y vinos principalmente), aunque en ciertos casos también había productos de origen animal. Por el momento, no hemos podido definir cuál era el contenido preferente de cada uno de estos recipientes y cuál fue la secuencia en los productos envasados. Destaca el hecho que logramos corroborar que es posible analizar cerámicas vidriadas, obteniendo de ellas información clave que servirá a futuro para definir el uso de los recipientes del periodo colonial novohispano.
•North-eastern Italian upland site Busa delle Vette was investigated.•Focus on the main occupation period (the Early Middle Ages, 6thto 9thc. AD).•Thirty ceramic sherds of cooking pots were analysed ...through organic residues analysis.•We identified ruminant adipose products, sometimes with ruminant dairy products and millet.•The results are consistent with the archaeozoological and archaeobotanical records.•The results suggest that the cooking pots were mainly used to prepare soups and stews.
The Busa delle Vette site was investigated as part of the UPLanD project, focused on the archaeology of pastoralism, to shed light on the lifeways of pastoral groups during the summer months. The site is composed of a hut and some enclosures located on a glacial cirque at 1850 m asl, in the Dolomites (Veneto, Italy), dating back from the Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (5th to the 11th century CE). Initial data suggested that the hut was used by groups of shepherds for transhumance, but new evidence began to point to a possible different function.
Thirty ceramic sherds of cooking pots dated to the Early Middle Ages (6th to 9th century CE), were analysed through organic residues analysis to identify their use and reconstruct the dietary habits of the people living at the site. The results of the analysis were discussed in relation to unpublished archaeozoological and archaeobotanical evidence to shed some light on the activities that were carried out in the investigated hut and the function of the site. The findings suggest that the cooking pots were mainly used to prepare soups and stews. Ruminant adipose products were identified in most of the investigated pots, sometimes associated with ruminant dairy products and millet. These data are consistent with the archaeozoological and archaeobotanical records, suggesting an intense use of this structure, not limited to seasonal pastoral practices but also associated to the mobility of troops and travellers through the local mountain passes. More research is necessary to validate this fascinating hypothesis, as comparable sites have never been identified in the Alps.
The early consumption of wine or other grape derivatives (such as vinegar or must) is suggested from organic residues analysis conducted on Bronze Age pottery recovered from two sites in ...north-eastern Italy, Pilastri di Bondeno (Ferrara) and Canale Anfora (Aquileia, Udine). Pilastri is part of the Terramare culture of the Po plain, from which the archaeobotanical context has suggested that Vitis vinifera L. was known and used during the Middle Bronze Age. At Canale Anfora Vitis, macro-remains were found in earlier levels of the local stratigraphy. Organic residue analysis conducted by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry allowed the identification of tartaric acid in twenty samples out of thirty-one recovered from different ceramic vessels (e.g., drinking cups, coarse ware pots, presumed storage vessels) found at the two archaeological sites and dated to the 15th-14th centuries BC. Based on integrated studies, we suggest that grape juice derivatives (including wine or vinegar) were likely consumed at the sites. This is the earliest direct evidence of grape derivatives consumption in this area. Combined with the botanical evidence, these findings contribute to our understanding of the emergence of wine consumption in the western Mediterranean.
•Tartaric acid is present in Bronze Age ceramics from northeastern Italy (c. 1500–1300 BCE).•We hypothesize that wine was consumed and possibly produced at the studied sites.•Traces of tartaric acid were detected in cups and vessels with different forms and capacities.•We hypothesize different ways of consumption and different uses of wine and its derivatives.
Amphorae are key materials in the investigation of the production and transport of goods in ancient times. For the Roman period, many typologies of amphorae are standardised and there are hypotheses ...concerning their uses and contents mainly based on the shape, provenance, tituli picti and, when preserved, the solid contents. However, there are still many amphora types that have to be investigated in order to better understand the economy of the regions where they were produced and filled. This is the case of the amphorae object of this paper: the so-called ovoid amphorae of Hispania Ulterior/Baetica.
This paper presents new results of an interdisciplinary investigation aimed to discover the commodities contained in ovoid amphorae. This amphora type and its specific use have never been investigated, except for a preliminary test. Here, organic residues analysis of twenty-four amphorae produced in two different locations in Hispania Ulterior/Baetica (Bay of Cadiz and the Guadalquivir Valley) and excavated at the site of El Olivillo in Cadiz (Spain), are presented. The findings suggest that the majority of the amphorae were coated with abundant pitch derived from Pinaceae trees and that most of them contained grape derivatives, although other products were also identified. Not only is this documentation of Hispania Ulterior/Baetican wine production in the late Republican period important, but the use of ovoid amphorae for carrying wine is somewhat unexpected because it is usually thought that amphorae of this type in southern Italy and in the Corinthia probably carried olive oil.
This paper presents the results of the mineralogical, petrographic and chemical study of different archaeological samples related to terracruda sculptures and other elements that were part of the ...architectural decoration of the Buddhist sites of Tepe Narenj and Qol‐e‐tut (Kabul, Afghanistan; fifth to 11th centuries CE). The main objective of the study was to characterize the samples using an archaeometric approach. The study helped to better understand the materials involved in the modeling of Afghan sculptures and their processing, such as the different nature of the clay layers and the finishing ‘stucco’ coating. The results further indicate that similarities exist among the manufacturing process of the studied samples and that used today by an ancient caste of clay artists in West Bengal (India), suggesting the existence of a continuous technological tradition that deserves to be further explored in the future.
In diesem Beitrag wird der Fundplatz Generalka 2 auf der Insel Chortica bei der Stadt Zaporižžja in der Ukraine vorgestellt. Seit dem Jahr 2000 finden hier regelmäßig Ausgrabungen statt, bei denen ...mehrere Grabensegmente freigelegt wurden. Die Funde, insbesondere die Keramik, sind typisch für die Jamnaja-Kultur (Grubengrabkultur) und auch die
C-Datierungen weisen in die erste Hälfte des 3. Jts. v. Chr. Zunächst wurde vermutet, dass hier eine Siedlung vorliegt, wie mehrere im Bereich der ehemaligen Dneprstromschnellen nördlich der südukrainischen Stadt Zaporižžja entdeckt worden sind. Neueste Feldforschungen weisen allerdings auf eine andere Kategorie von Denkmal hin. Grabenwerke sind aus verschiedenen Großräumen bekannt und als ‚causewayed enclosures‘ in der englischsprachigen Literatur beschrieben worden.
Hier werden nun die Ergebnisse mehrerer naturwissenschaftlicher Untersuchungen am Fundstoff aus Generalka 2 vorgelegt. Für einen Fundplatz der Jamnaja-Kultur, der keine Begräbnisstätte darstellt, wurde eine umfassende Analyse von über 10.000 Tierknochen vorgenommen. Die 3.071 Knochen, die archäozoologisch einer Tierart zugeordnet werden können, lassen Rückschlüsse auf die Herdenzusammensetzung zu und belegen, dass Wildfauna nur eine untergeordnete Rolle in der Subsistenzbasis der Menschen zukam, die am unteren Dnepr im frühen 3. Jt. v. Chr. gelebt haben. Da auch zahlreiche Zähne von Wiederkäuern erhalten waren, wurden Isotopenanalysen durchgeführt, um Hinweise auf das Herdenmanagement zu erhalten. In einer weiteren Pilotstudie wurden Gefäßfragmente auf organische Rückstandsanalysen untersucht und die Ergebnisse mit den archäozoologischen Resultaten verglichen. Die hier erstmals vorgelegten und diskutierten Daten belegen eindrücklich das Potential für die Untersuchung eines solchen Steppenfundplatzes.