Approach

This part of the project involves three areas of focus:

1. Cattle frequency analyses look at the prevalence of cattle remains compared to the other main domesticates (pig and sheep/goat), in order to analyse its importance through time. 

2. Age-at-Death analyses determine what products cattle were exploited for (e.g. meat, dairy and/or labour). Of particular interest is whether there are any indications of a higher prevalence of dairy herds in CWC populations, and if there is any correlation with changes seen in dairy lipids and proteins found in the pots. 

3. Biometrical analyses will: 

a) track cattle body size and shape change through time (i.e. cattle with a different body size and/or shape may indicate the introduction of a new cattle population); 

b) compare the stature of cattle between the two geographical areas, gauging the potential for different geographic types and; 

c) detect the ratios of males, females and castrates, in order to compare management over time and between regions. 

Organic Residue Analysis uses molecular and isotopic characterisation techniques in order to identify lipids (i.e. fats, waxes and resins) associated with the processing of foodstuffs relating to past human activity. 

In this project Corded Ware pottery sherds will be compared to those from earlier layers in order to look for change in pottery use over time. In particular we are interested in whether there was a change in the way that dairy was used by communities using Corded Ware.

Lipids will be extracted using a high-throughput extraction procedure, and analysed using Gas Chromatography (GC), GC-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and GC-Combustion-Isotope Ratio-MS (GC-C-IRMS).

We will compare the genetic diversity of cattle from before and after the arrival of the CWC and between the two regions, in order to detect the potential for a new cattle population to have been introduced at this time. 

For this part of the project we are collaborating with Dan Bradley and Victoria Mullin at Trinity College Dublin through their current European Research Council project AncestralWeave.

The detection of milk proteins on pottery using palaeoproteomics can provide greater taxonomic insight than Organic Residue Analysis, enabling more secure identification of cattle milk in pots, as opposed to the milk of other ruminant species. 

This approach will be used in tandem with lipid analysis on Corded Ware and earlier pottery sherds in order to investigate changing use through time.

Proteins will be extracted using a novel shotgun approach, using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).