During cooking, food molecules have the capacity to migrate and get trapped within the porous matrix of a pottery container. This trap also serves as a vault since it will protect those molecules from degradation, even for thousands of years.

Among these food molecules, lipids are particularly attractive since they are found in almost every natural food, are very stable, and are able to be extracted and breakdown for analysis. The lipid composition, the presence of specific molecules ("biomarkers"), or the isotopic signature of targeted molecules will allow us to infer the original contents of the container such as plants, ruminant meat, or fish.

This is done using a suite of organic-geochemical techniques: Gas Chromatography (GC), Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS), Combustion Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (GC-c-IRMS).