Lipid Residue Analysis

Lipid residue analysis identifies the foodstuffs once processed, stored, or cooked in ancient pottery by recovering and characterizing the fatty molecules absorbed into the porous ceramic fabric. Lipids are hydrophobic, comparatively stable, and become trapped within vessel walls, where they can survive for millennia long after proteins and DNA have vanished, making them the most informative class of organic residue for reconstructing pot use. Richard Evershed and the Bristol school turned this insight into a rigorous analytical program — the 'archaeological biomarker revolution' — combining gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify diagnostic compounds with compound-specific carbon-isotope analysis of individual fatty acids to distinguish, for example, dairy from carcass fats and ruminant from non-ruminant sources. The result is direct molecular evidence of past diet and culinary practice from the vessels themselves.